The Prague School and Theories of Structure [1 ed.] 9783862347049, 9783899717044

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Interfacing Science, Literature, and the Humanities / ACUME 2 Volume 1 Edited by Vita Fortunati, Università di Bologna Elena Agazzi, Università di Bergamo

Scientific Board Andrea Battistini (Università di Bologna), Jean Bessière (Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle), Dino Buzzetti (Università di Bologna), Gilberto Corbellini (Università di Roma »La Sapienza«), Theo D’Haen (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Claudio Franceschi (Università di Bologna), Brian Hurwitz (King’s College, London), Moustapha Kassem (Odense Universiteit, Denmark), Tom Kirkwood (University of Newcastle), Ansgar Nünning (Justus Liebig Universität Gießen), Giuliano Pancaldi (Università di Bologna), Manfred Pfister (Freie Universität Berlin), Stefano Poggi (Università di Firenze), Martin Prochazka (Univerzita Karlova v Praze), Maeve Rea (Queen’s College, Belfast), Ewa Sikora (Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Warszawa), Paola Spinozzi (Università di Ferrara) Editorial Board Kirsten Dickhaut (Justus Liebig Universität Gießen), Raul Calzoni (Università di Bergamo), Gilberta Golinelli (Università di Bologna), Andrea Grignolio (Università di Bologna), Pierfrancesco Lostia (Università di Bologna) Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-ND 4.0

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Martin Procházka / Markéta Malá / Pavlína Šaldová (eds.)

The Prague School and Theories of Structure

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This book has been published with the support of the Socrates Erasmus program for Thematic Network Projects through grant 227942-CP-1-2006-1-IT-ERASMUS-TN2006-2371/001-001 SO223RETH. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which might be made of the information contained therein. Questo volume è stato pubblicato con il contributo del programma Socrates Erasmus per i progetti di reti tematiche – 227942-CP-1-2006-1-IT-ERASMUS-TN2006-2371/001-001 SO2-23RETH. Il progetto è stato finanziato con il contributo della Commissione europea. La presente pubblicazione riflette le idee del solo autore e la Commissione europea non può ritenersi responsabile per l’uso che potrebbe essere fatto delle informazioni contenute al suo interno. The editorial work on this volume was supported from the research grant MSM0021620824 “Foundations of the Modern World as Reflected in Literature and Philosophy” awarded to the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, by the Czech Ministry of Education.

An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. The Open Access ISBN of this book is 978-3-86234-704-9. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. ISBN 978-3-86234-704-9 © Copyright 2010 by V&R unipress GmbH, D-39079 Goettingen This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non CommercialNo Derivatives 4.0 International license, at DOI 10.14220/9783862347049. For a copy of this license go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-ND 4.0

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Contents

Vita Fortunati and Martin Prochzka Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9

Part 1 Structuralism and Language System Libusˇe Dusˇkov Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

I Prague Structuralism: Founders’ Legacies Michel Viel N.S. Trubetzkoy, England and the English Language . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

Craig Callender Trubetzkoy, Autosegmental Phonology and the Segmental Status of Geminates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45

Rostislav Kocourek On Trnka on Linguistics and Signs

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

61

Libusˇe Dusˇkov On Bohumil Trnka’s Concept of Neutralization and its Nature on the Higher Language Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87

II Information Structure in Czech Linguistics Today Eva Hajicˇov Information Structure from the Point of View of the Relation of Function and Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Martin Adam Structural Dichotomy in the Theory of Functional Sentence Perspective . 129

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Contents

Jana Chamonikolasov Communicative Dynamism and Prosodic Prominence of English and Czech Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

III System and Structure at Discourse Level Karin Aijmer The Attention-getting Devices look, see and listen . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Pavl„na Sˇaldov and Mark¤ta Mal Discourse-pragmatic Functions of Participial Clauses in Preverbal Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Renata P„palov On the Content Aspect of Textual Themes

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

IV Structures and Meaning Vladislav Smolka Why We Read What We Think We Are Reading: On Some Aspects of Resolving Ambiguity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Stanislav Kavka Whims of Context in the Interpretation of Idiomatic Expressions . . . . . 219 ˇ ermk Alesˇ Kl¤gr and Jan C Neologisms of the ›On-the-pattern-of‹ Type: Analogy as a Word-formation Process? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Part 2 Beyond Language Structures Martin Prochzka Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

I Legacies of Prague Structuralism and Literary Studies Lawrence Lipking Lost in Translation: The Prague School and the World of Literature

. . . 253

Ilias Yocaris Towards a Neoformalist Approach to Literary Texts: Roman Jakobson’s Conceptual Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

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Contents

Shirley Sharon-Zisser The Poetic Function from Jakobson to Lacan: A Lacanian Theory of Poetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 M. Elizabeth Weiser Ren¤ Wellek and Kenneth Burke: Prague Influences on the Birth of Modern Rhetoric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Lawrence K. Stanley Structural Transformation: Short-story Narratives and the Significance of Degree Zero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 James W. Underhill Structure and Reconstruction: Jirˇ„ Levy´ and the Translation of Poems . . 313

II Structuralism Today Aleida Assmann Structuralism: Great Expectations or Paradigm Lost? A Personal Reassessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 Monica Spiridon Bakhtin after Bakhtin: The Fate of a Pioneering Theory of Language . . . 353 Erik S. Roraback Niklas Luhmann and Forms of the Baroque Modern; or, Structure, System and Contingency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 Martin Prochzka Structuralism and History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 Mark Amsler Jakobson’s Dominant, Hyperliteracies, and Structures of History . . . . . 387

III Theories of Structure and Their Transformations Johannes Fehr The Question of Transmission in Saussure’s Reflections on Language Giuseppe Martella From Index to Link: A Phenomenology of Language

. . 415

. . . . . . . . . . . 427

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Contents

Ming-Qian Ma Toward a Closed-Open Typology : Language System, Systems Theory and a Phenomenology of an Organization-Structure Interface . . . . . . . . . 437 Martin Prochzka Structure and the Philosophy of As-If: Wellek, Vaihinger and Iser Index

. . . . 453

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

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Vita Fortunati and Martin Prochzka

Preface

The main purpose of this volume is not to celebrate the achievement of the Prague Linguistic Circle, but to explore the present state and future prospects of structuralism, and specifically the contribution of the Prague School to the theoretical thought of structures, signs and language systems. This pursuit includes the reassessment of the theoretical legacy of some Prague structuralists, which has not yet been sufficiently researched, as in the case of Bohumil Trnka; or has been studied in a different context, as in the case of Ren¤ Wellek. Today, it is possible to fully appreciate the legacy of structuralism thanks to the lively debate on its limits carried out by the major theoretical developments of the last three decades of the twentieth century, including deconstruction and New Historicism. One of the important contributions to these discussions has been the discovery of the significance of the notions of dynamic and open structure, present already in de Saussure’s reflections on language and in the thought of the Prague School. The second, and equally important feature of this project is the study of transformations of structuralist approaches in recent and contemporary theories of structures and systems. For instance, the New Historicist re-readings of Foucault have contributed to the understanding of the limitations of a structuralist notion of »immanent« literary history and pointed out the significance of historical context. Finally, the book develops the tradition of the Prague School in the direction of interdisciplinarity. After the Moscow Linguistic Circle and the OPOYAZ of St. Petersburg, the Prague School was one of the first interdisciplinary movements in modern humanities, diverging from the traditions of positivism, historical philologism and academic criticism. The structuralist tendency towards the methodological integration of the humanities and the natural sciences has anticipated present research of their interfacing and established a new level of understanding discourses in cultures and literatures (e. g., in Clifford Geertz’s study of culture).

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Vita Fortunati and Martin Prochzka

The contributors to this volume aim to proceed further in terms of theoretical research as well as international integration. The book is a major output of a wide-ranging interdisciplinary project of 78 European universities from 23 countries within and without the EU, including participants from many regions outside Europe, including the United States, Israel or New Zealand. The main topic of the European Thematic Network Project ACUME 2, coordinated by the University of Bologna, is »Interfacing Sciences, Literature and Humanities« As a consequence, theories of structure and methodologies of interfacing are dominant themes in this book. In the first part, interfacing is studied in terms of specific functions of language systems (e. g., autosegmentality, semantic function, co-referentiality, attention-getting devices). The second part explores the problems of interfacing first in the translation and reception of literature (e. g., in neo-formalist »structural stylistics,« the Lacanian reinterpretation of Jakobson’s »poetic function,« Burke’s theory of rhetoric focused on language as »symbolic action« or comparative theories of verse). Then it focuses on the potential of structuralist approaches to transcend the limitations of closed systems based on linguistic models. This potential is seen in de Saussure’s notion of »transmission,« Bakhtin’s heteroglossia, Luhmann’s systems theory or in the theory of »hyperliteracy« The volume is concluded with chapters on recent notions of structurality manifest in open systems of asymmetrical differences, transversal relations or dynamic semantic situations, and characterized by interfaces between organization and structure, imagination and reasoning, culture and cosmos. The volume demonstrates not only the importance of Prague structuralism for recent and contemporary theories of systems, signs, communication, language, translation and literature but also its remarkable transformative potential of producing methodologies capable of bridging the gap between the »two cultures« of the sciences and the humanities.

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Part 1 Structuralism and Language System

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Libusˇe Dusˇkov

Introduction

In the field of linguistics the theories of the Prague School are generally characterized by the term functional structuralism. While the term ›structuralism‹ is common to several linguistic trends initiated by Ferdinand de Saussure’s innovating approach to language, the attribute ›functional‹ is regarded as a distinctive feature of Prague scholars. In their conception description and explanation of language phenomena as a structured whole rather than a mechanical agglomerate was not an end in itself: this structured whole – language – should be understood as a functioning means of communication. This dual aspect of the Prague School approach is fully reflected in the topics of the individual chapters. ›Structure‹ immediately invokes the first generation of the Prague Linguistic Circle. Rather predictably, of its representatives foreign authors concentrated on N.S. Trubetzkoy, while Czech contributors turned to Bohumil Trnka. Among the Czech founders of the Circle it was indeed Bohumil Trnka, with whom the term ›structuralism‹ was primarily associated. The attribute ›functional‹, on the other hand, embodies the approach of the founder of the Circle, Vil¤m Mathesius. Apart from the chapters on Trubetzkoy and Trnka, this part contains articles concerned with the higher levels of the language system, viz. syntax and the utterance level. Chapters dealing with the highest level address different aspects of utterance, in particular information structure, discourse markers and text build-up. Two chapters are devoted to points from the field of lexicology and phraseology. Both Trubetzkoy and Trnka are the topics of two chapters. Trubetzkoy is presented as a phonologist, phonology having been the leitmotif of his short life. It was his pursuits of this language level that closely linked him with the Circle’s spheres of interest prevailing before World War I. Michel Viel’s presentation of Trubetzkoy’s approach to phonology covers the broader context of his relation to England and the English language. In view of Trubetzkoy’s wide knowledge of Caucasian and Slavic languages, in addition to French and German, his command of English was poor. However, this did not prevent him from including the

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phonological system of English in his phonological analyses. Trubetzkoy found the English vowel system absurd because it flouts the rule of mutual exclusiveness of quantity and stress as phonological elements. Another vexed problem of the English vowel system was posed by the asymmetry between the system of short and long vowels. Here Trubetzkoy’s close association with the Circle is most obvious in his criticism of Vachek’s and Trnka’s treatments of this point. In his general appraisal of Trubetzkoy’s linguistic merits Michel Viel comes to the same conclusion as the author of the second chapter on Trubetzkoy, Craig Callender : Trubetzkoy was a pioneer with ideas to be drawn on by further research. In Callender’s chapter the point under discussion is the segmental status of geminates as viewed by autosegmental phonology on the one hand, and by Trubetzkoy on the other. The author poses the question of whether the representation of geminates within the framework of autosegmetal phonology had a precedent in Trubetzkoy’s work. Focusing on medial geminates he argues that Trubetzkoy anticipated the modern approach in his monophonemic conception of geminates on syllable boundaries and biphonemic conception where they occurred on morpheme boundaries. Autosegmental phonology has provided a theoretical model to represent geminates and a vast amount of cross-linguistic data in support of this view. The two chapters devoted to Bohumil Trnka were both written by his former students. Rostislav Kocourek’s comprehensive chapter first acquaints us with Trnka’s academic career and achievements, recalls his definitions of linguistic structuralism, and discusses his views on such topics as langue and parole, laws and rules, the language of science and terminology, historical and comparative linguistics and disciplinarity. The main part of the chapter presents a thorough interpretation of Trnka’s original and very broad concept of the linguistic sign, its asymmetry and transitivity. The distinctive and semantic sign functions pervade all four hierarchical levels of language, serving, in utterances, as instruments of intersubjective communication. This adds a humanizing aspect to language structure, and constitutes the basis of Trnka’s epistemological strategy, namely construction of the language system on the basis of utterances. The chapter by Libusˇe Dusˇkov deals with a recurrent point in Trnka’s work, the concept of neutralization. According to Trnka neutralization operates on all structural language levels, but in his own work it is mostly elaborated in phonology and morphology. The problem it poses on the higher language levels is the number of features involved. While in morphology neutralization involves form and meaning, in syntax, apart from form (structure) and semantic roles and/or sentence semantics, it also involves syntactic functions. On the utterance level the conditions for the instantiation of neutralization become even more complex, since here the basic units are the functions constituting the functional sentence perspective (the theme-rheme structure, topic-focus articulation),

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Introduction

which are determined by four factors, context, semantics, linearity and intonation, and lack a distinctive realization form. Instances complying with these conditions, if any, are a matter of future research. The utterance level from the aspect of information structure is the topic of three chapters written, respectively, by Eva Hajicˇov, Martin Adam and Jana Chamonikolasov. Eva Hajicˇov discusses information structure from the viewpoint of the relation of form and function. The reader will welcome an introductory survey of definitions of these two concepts as given by members of the Prague School, collected from different, not readily accessible sources. The body of the chapter is concerned with the communicative role of language and the position of topicfocus articulation in the form – function hierarchy. The author argues that topicfocus articulation is a semantically relevant part of the description of the sentence at the underlying level of language description. As such it belongs to langue, the language system, rather than to parole understood as the domain of communication and discourse. From the point of view of the form – function relation as defined by the Prague School it is not precise to characterize topicfocus articulation (the theme-rheme structure) as an interplay of four factors since linearity and intonation are means or forms in the hierarchy, while semantics and context belong to the underlying level. Martin Adam’s chapter presents an application of the theory of functional sentence perspective (FSP) to a communicative macrofield constituted by a passage of biblical narrative. Whereas the FSP analysis of a basic distributional microfield, the clause, is a horizontal process with syntagmatic relations between the constituent segments, the FSP analysis of a macrofield involves two types of vertical relations, viz. co-referential strings (chains of communicative units with the same referent) and dynamic-semantic tracks formed by all the respective thematic, transitional and rhematic elements of the text. The horizontal and vertical relations ascertained in FSP analysis correspond to Ferdinand de Saussure’s basic relations between the units of the system, viz. syntagmatic and associative. The extension of FSP analysis to communicative macrofields appears to enrich the set of methodological tools available to the analysis of text. An FSP analysis applied to spoken language is outlined in the chapter by Jana Chamonikolasov, who compares accentuation of pronouns in English and Czech. As largely contextually bound elements, pronouns are disposed to function as themes, and hence carry low amounts of prosodic prominence. The author concentrates on instances where they carry the intonation centre (the nuclear tone) and become the rheme proper of the sentence. This is found where the pronoun is contrasted with, or selected from, a set of elements or where the accentuation is motivated by emotive attitude. While the English dialogues under examination display both types of rhematization, the Czech pronouns are

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rhematized almost exclusively as a result of contrast or selection, emotive colouring of a message being achieved by lexical rather than prosodic means. Chapters on the discourse and textual aspects of the utterance level are introduced by a detailed corpus study of the attention-getting devices look, see and listen by Karin Aijmer. Pragmatic markers of this kind appear to be context bound and indexically linked to a number of sociolinguistic features such as age, class and gender of the speaker. The author concentrates on the question of how adolescents use these devices differently from adults. Young people of equal status use many attention-getters to show that they belong to the same social group or network. Adults use them less frequently especially in the interruptive and floor-seeking function. In adults’ speech, look and listen serve to draw added attention to an utterance, to provide metaphorical urgency for emphasis. In general look and listen are multifunctional as a result of their grammaticalization or pragmaticalization from imperatives of perceptual verbs. They have meanings related to discourse-management tasks as well as the social function to establish or maintain intimacy and social solidarity. Pavl„na Sˇaldov and Mark¤ta Mal discuss discourse-pragmatic functions of modifying and adverbial participial clauses in non-final positions. Generally, more complex clause elements tend to be positioned after the verb (the principle of end weight), hence participles in preverbal position can be considered marked. The authors focus on identifying the discourse-pragmatic factors which cause participial clauses to be placed medially and initially. When considered from the viewpoint of the macro-structure of the text, the non-canonical position of these clauses appears to contribute to establishing and maintaining cohesive ties, to facilitate the introduction of a new topic into the text and may also serve as an explicit means of textual organization. The attachment rule is shown to obtain across the sentence boundary, its non-observance resulting in additional pragmatic inferencing of stronger semantic relations. The interaction between the micro- and macro-structure is pragmatically conditioned, which involves not only cohesive ties but also coherence semantic relations. Renata P„palov addresses the content aspect of textual themes. Textual theme is seen as the most static, unifying element embodying the subject matter treated in the respective text. It constitutes a thematic area which encloses three distinct layers arranged from the broadest to the narrowest, resembling a kind of a pyramid. The broadest, most diffuse layer derives from and reflects the comprehensive structure of the communicative event. The central layer of the theme is a complex hierarchized (cognitive) structure, in monologic text selected by the author, whose strategic decisions perspective the content in a particular way. In the narrowest layer the selected item is focused, thus gaining extra prominence. Even if a discourse subject remains the centre of attention throughout the discourse, it is always foregrounded against the respective

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Introduction

background, the broadest and the central layers, which are activated even if only implied. The last three chapters have meaning in common. Vladislav Smolka seeks to identify the aspects that help resolve ambiguity. The questions he asks are to what extent ambiguities are detected, which factors render one interpretation easier to arrive at than another, whether they always have to be resolved and whether ambiguities in language communication reflect ambiguities in reality. Ambiguities are a matter of perception rather than production and hence are rarely intentional. Ambiguity of a syntactic structure is much more easily identified out of context since in authentic texts a structure is interpreted in a manner that fits into the context. Structural ambiguities are often resolved by semantic and pragmatic factors, including the language users’ expectations about what is going to come next. As regards the last two questions, a fine discrimination of meaning is largely unnecessary, underspecification and approximation being the norm in language communication. The author concludes by noting analogies of ambiguous or indeterminate language structure in other fields, even in such as epitomize accuracy and exactitude. Ambiguity is also dealt with in Stanislav Kavka’s chapter on whims of context in the interpretation of idiomatic expressions. As in the case of structural ambiguities, indeterminacy between literal or figurative meaning of idiomatic expressions interpretable in both ways is resolved by the ›omnipotent‹ context. However, here context has to be conceived as a complex phenomenon in which the primary role is played by its co-situational component. The author presents two prototypical cases, one showing the process of biasing interpretation on the interlocutor’s part, the key to the interpretation being provided by the context. The other example illustrates the way of selecting a proper idiomatic expression on the speaker’s part. The choice from the available synonymous idiomatic expressions is shown to depend not only on the context which calls for a commensurate degree of expressivity, but also on the momentary mood of the speaker which the idiomatic expression reflects. The chapter that closes the first part of the volume revokes one of Bohumil Trnka’s topics, analogy, in regard to its impact on word formation. Alesˇ Kl¤gr ˇ ermk address the question of whether neologisms of the ›on-theand Jan C pattern-of‹ type demonstrate the operation of analogy as a word-formation process. Basing their analysis on the etymology block of the electronic Concise Oxford Dictionary they show that presumed analogical formations can be assigned to all major word-formation processes. From these they differ in displaying certain characteristic features: irregularity or unpredictability, morphemic reanalysis and semantic links between the pattern-providing word and neologism, which leads to the formation of lexical fields. The examined sample thus confirms the existence of analogy at two levels, viz. local analogy (the

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traditional idea of analogy as a local mechanism) and extended analogy (providing a pattern for a series of formations). The authors conclude that rather than constituting a distinct word-formation type analogy is a motivated way of exploiting all word-formation processes to fill some immediate need. As a whole the linguistic part of the present volume appears to display a shift of interest from the lower to the highest level of the language system, which reflects the general trends in the development of linguistics since the first decades of the last century. At the same time, it shows the wide coverage of presentday language studies encompassing diverse points outside the mainstream, approached by diverse methodology and from diverse aspects, needed to capture the multifarious nature of language facts.

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I Prague Structuralism: Founders’ Legacies

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Michel Viel

N.S. Trubetzkoy, England and the English Language

In this chapter I intend to explore the complex relationship between (Prince) N.S. Trubetzkoy (Moscow 1890 – Vienna 1938) and languages, focussing on the one language he felt particularly uncomfortable with, i. e. English. Trubetzkoy never mastered the language, and consequently had limited access to literature in English. While he cherished Caucasian and Slavic languages,1 used German and French as tools for communication, there was a language that was not close to his heart. Oddly enough, England and the English were strangers to him just as their language was.

1.

Portrait of the Phonologist as a Polyglot

According to V. Porzˇezinskij, who supported Trubetzkoy’s application to a post at the University of Moscow in 1913, besides his native Russian, the young prince mastered no less than three other modern European languages: German, French and Italian. A quick computation of Trubetzkoy’s bibliography (Havrnek 1939) gives the following figures: with 51 references German comes first, just ahead of Russian (46 references); French lags far behind with 20 references, Czech is fourth (6 references, all contributions to the Prague Circle journal Slovo a slovesnost). There is one reference to Italian, and one to Polish. As for English there are none, apart from an entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Nevertheless these figures are misleading. Trubetzkoy’s language par excellence was Russian. Most of his extensive correspondence is in Russian, in particular his letters to R.O. Jakobson, some of which could pass as unedited copies of articles. In Russian too are some of his works on Slavic philology and all 1 Both families are of special interest to him but only Caucasian languages are said to be inebriating: »nc_ d ]V^p SbVTUQ Sa_UV XQ`_p.« (Letter 81, 7 May 1931, 202).

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his political and philosophical literature. There is also evidence that at least some of his pieces originally published in German had been translated from Russian.2 The main problem was that there was hardly any readership in Russian. From the day Trubetzkoy left his home country, it was clear that he would have to switch to French or German. French was his first choice. There is reason to believe that Trubetzkoy was more fluent in French than in German even though he had spent a year in Leipzig (1913). Jakobson (Trubetzkoy 1975, Letter 49, 9 July 1929, 137) trusted Trubetzkoy’s French and he requested his help for his »Remarques sur l’¤volution phonologique du russe compar¤e ” celle des autres langues slaves« (1929). In Letter 162 of 11 August 1936 Trubetzkoy disclaimed any authority over French, and yet the suggestions he made were correct. Conversely he warned Jakobson that his German manuscripts should be subjected to revision by a German editor. For instance, concerning his German article »Zur allgemeinen Theorie des phonologischen Vokalsysteme« (1929), he says: »As for the manuscript I have to tell you first that I did not give it to a German for checking, so that here and there the language might be clumsy.« (Letter 43, 28 March 1929, 119)3 There is no evidence that he needed any such help in French. However as time went by German took over from French. German had had a considerable influence on the making of the scientific terminology of Russian.4 The Russian aristocracy learnt French through their French governesses, but science was different. In Letter 49 mentioned above, Trubetzkoy complained about French; in this language, he said, instead of naming things, one has to describe them. However there were more serious matters to deal with. The German language was his paymaster so to speak, and he had to yield to pressure from his employers to write in German. »I pray you to publish my article about vowel systems in German« [»Zur allgemeinen Theorie der phonologischen Vokalsyteme«, 1929], he tells Jakobson. »Its appearance in French might cause me trouble here. The thing is there are always people here who don’t like me, as a professor in Austria, writing in French« (Letter 44, 16 April 1929, 121).5 French would have done as well, for his French was flawless. By the time Trubetzkoy had reached the last year of his short life, he had stopped writing in French. Czech he could read, but slowly, and all the more so as he had a cataract on one 2 For example »Gedanken îber das Indogermanenproblem« (in German 1939, Russian original published in Voprosy Jazykoznanija, 1958). 3 »@_ `_S_Ud ad[_`YbY XQ]Vhd, S_ `VaSlf, hc_ p VV ^V UQSQ\ `a_SVapcm ^V]gd, cQ[ hc_ S ^VZ SVa_pc^_ Vbcm iVa_f_SQc_bcY S b]lb\V ^V]Vg[_T_ pXl[Q.« 4 See examples in S¤riot (2006, 12). 5 »=_o bcQcmo _ bYbcV]Qf T\Qb^lf _hV^m `a_id ^Q`VhQcQcm `_^V]Vg[Y. @_pS\V^YV VV `_eaQ^gdXb[Y ]_T\_ Rl XUVbm b_XUQcm U\p ]V^p ^V`aYpc^_bcY. 5V\_ S c_] , hc_ XUVbm [_V [c_ S__RjV ^VU_S_\V^ cV], hc_ p, RdUdhY QSbcaYZb[Y] `a_eVbb_a_], `Yid `_eaQ^gdXb[Y.«

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eye. He complains that his wife could do nothing for him in this respect because she could not read Czech. However he was lucky enough to secure the help of a student, Miss G. Hendenreich of Brno (Letter 139, n. 2, 7 March 1935, 325) and she opened to him the gates of Slovo a slovesnost although he had been critical of this periodical, and had blamed Jakobson for devoting too much of his time to it when he should have been at work on his book on Russian phonology (Letter 137, 25 January 1935, 363). In fact it was letters and studies in English for which the help of Vera Petrovna was required, as she passed as an expert in this language (Letter 109, 25 July 1932, 252, n. 2). Otherwise a computation of Jakobson’s Index of Trubetzkoy’s Letters and Notes (Index revised by S¤riot 2006) shows that Nikolaj Sergeevicˇ had little interest in it. Out of the 188 languages or families of languages in the Index, English comes thirtieth, with only seven references.

2.

Crossing the Channel

Trubetzkoy never crossed the Atlantic but he did cross the Channel twice. The first occasion was an invitation from the University of London, where from May 19 to 21, 1934, he gave three lectures on the North Caucasian languages (the third was still unprepared by May 13 but he rightly trusted the urbanity of his hosts). The second occasion was the Second International Congress of Phonetic Sciences held at University College, London, from July 22 to 26, 1935. The two »London« letters (130 [Vienna, May 1934] and 139 [Swarzenau, August 3 – 4, 1935]) are certainly the most amusing in the bulk of Trubetzkoy’s correspondence. The man who was the most serious of all as a man of science, could also be a satirist. It all comes down to what the English have or do not have. Most strikingly, they do not have linguists, i. e. »linguists in the true sense of the word«, »real linguists«, »what we call linguists at home«. True, they do have a certain Firth but he is not good at general questions, and of course they have Gardiner (but he is not a linguist). Now what they have is an interesting medley : boisterous children playing different sorts of games under the benevolent supervision of Daniel Jones, shops which take registered letters, the right to walk on lawns, and most of all a monetary unit which divides into twelve sub-units, the said monetary unit ineptly called the shilling like the Austrian Schilling). Among the games they play is one about sounds and phonemes, whose ultimate goal is to find two sounds, as far apart as possible, that are members of a single phoneme. The irony of the situation was that of the four volumes of Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague already published, Trubetzkoy had read numbers 1, 2 and 4, and the sportive non-linguists who killed time playing with sounds and

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phonemes had read number 3. Writing to Jakobson, Trubetzkoy did not have to say why : the book, B. Trnka’s On the Syntax of the English Verb from Caxton to Dryden, Prague, 1930, is in English and about English. Double fault. During his first stay in England, Trubetzkoy was lucky enough to be surrounded by playful French-speaking gentlemen. Not so the following year. Ignorance of English had been a source of frustration for several years. As a specialist of Caucasian and Slavic languages he had managed without English but as his interest in more general questions grew, he could not do without it. During his year in Leipzig, he had had Bloomfield as tovarisˇcˇ, but now, with Bloomfield writing in English he could not even read Language without looking up every third word in the dictionary. In Letter 142 (17 May 1935, 335), convinced that the book might be of interest to him, he suggested that they should give it to some intelligent third party that could speak English, and have him sum it up for practical use. By that time, Trubetzkoy had ceased once and for all to expect anything from the members of Jones’s school, and had turned his attention to the works of specialists of African and Native American languages, anthropologists and ethnologists, either British or American. As a specialist of Caucasian languages, who as a young man had done some field work, he liked these people, and felt at ease with them. The English did a good job describing »exotic languages«, and although they did not have the slightest theoretical notion, he could »translate« their language into that of phonology (Letter 141, 30 March 1935, 332 – 23). On different occasions he praised Boas, Swadesh, Kurath and many others, all fieldworkers at one point in their lives and careers, and he spoke highly of Sapir, whom he undoubtedly considered to be his counterpart in the New World. He concluded the above-mentioned letter by saying to Jakobson: »If you and me lived in Anglo-Saxon countries, the phonological description of the world would be over.«6 His second stay in London was an unqualified disaster. Back in Vienna, he wrote to Jakobson: I take no delay to give you my impressions of the congress. These are subjective impressions but I have had enough. It’s always the same, same people who say the same things. Of course this is very subjective. I don’t know if anyone feels the same. But I really think that there is no use getting together so often. (Letter 149, 3 – 4 August 1935, 341)7 6 »7YSY ]l b 3Q]Y S Q^T\_bQ[b_^b[Yf bcaQ^Qf, e_^_\_TYhVb[_V _`YbQ^YV ]YaQ Rl\_ Rl dWV T_c_S_.« 7 »@VaSl] U_\T_] b__RjQo 3Q] S`VhQc\V^Yp _c [_^TaVbbQ. BdRkV[cYS^_V S`VhQc\V^YV : ^QU_V\_, Sb× c_WV bQ]_V, Sb× cVWV \oUY, Y T_S_apc Sb× c_WV. þ_ nc_ , [_^Vh^_, _hV^m

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Then comes a »less subjective« reason: »The vast majority of the communications were in English, so that I could not understand half of them.«8 His frustration was at its worst when he heard a French-speaking Dane, his friend V. Brøndal, speak in English.9 Not only was the Congress frustrating, it was also a setback for phonology. His followers elaborated on the nature of phonology or the difference between sounds and phonemes at too general a level. They did not make a good impression and gave the young science a bad name. Trubetzkoy himself failed to enrol new members. He also failed to join the discussion session on time . . . but it was cancelled anyway because there was nobody there who wished to talk. Generally speaking the organization was poor. There was no time for discussion between communications. The only comfort was that the worst enemies of phonology had not come because their leader (Doroszewski) had a broken leg. The Congress dinner was worse than anything Trubetzkoy could have imagined: After the farewell dinner, several members of the Congress produced pieces for entertainment, the one a humorous speech, the other a comic song. Under the present circumstances, it should be noted that the word phoneme always produced unanimous bursts of laughter. Horn read a poem in Middle English of his own invention, which described the Congress and ended with the following words: wat is phonemes, wat is sunds? twelf men haf twelf difinitiuns. After that everyone quoted these lines, drawing unanimous applause (Letter 149, 3 – 4 August 1935, 344).10

In fact entertainment and social functions were plentiful. On Monday, 22 July »the members of the Congress were invited to tea by the Authorities of University College, London, and tea was served at 5 p.m. on the lawn in the front quadrangle of the College«. Bad luck, this is when and where Trubetzkoy who bdRkV[cYS^_. þVX^Qo , Rl\_ \Y nc_ hdSbcS_ d [_T_ ^YRdUm UadT_T_. þ_ ]^V `_\_WYcV\m^_ [QWVcbp, hc_ bkVXWQcmbp ^QU_ `_aVWV.« 8 »4a_]QU^_V R_\miY^bcS_ U_[\QU_S Rl\_ `_ Q^T\YZb[Y, cQ[ hc_ `_\_SY^l p ^V `_^p\.«

Fifty communications were in English, eleven in German, and six in French. 9 However Trubetzkoy ascertained that there was no heresy in Brøndal’s paper (Letter 149, 3 – 4 August 1935, 341). 10 »@_b\V `a_jQ\m^_T_ RQ^[VcQ Rl\Y dbca_V^l »UYSVacYb]V^cl«, c.V . aQX^lV h\V^l [_^TaVbbQ Slbcd`Q\Y, [c_ b idc_h^l]Y aVhQ]Y, [c_ b `VbV^[Q]Y Y c.U . 8Q]VhQcV\m^_ `aY nc_], hc_ b\_S_ ›e_^V]Q‹ [QWUlZ aQX SlXlSQ\_ UadW^lV SXalSl b]VfQ. Horn `a_hV\ b_hY^V^^_V Y] bQ]Y] bcYf_cS_aV^YV ^Q baVU^V-Q^T\YZb[_] pXl[V, _`YblSQojVV [_^TaVbb Y [_^hQSiVVbp b\_SQ]Y wat is phonemes, wat is sunds ? twelf men haf twelf difinitiuns. NcY b\_SQ `_c_] SbV]Y gYcYa_SQ\Ybm Y SlXSQ\Y UadW^lV Q``\_UYb]V^cl.«

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was watching »some idiotic film« (Letter 149, 342) missed the discussion . . . that never was. The following day »there was a Reception at the Mansion House to which a number of the members went by kind invitation of the Lord Mayor« (who was inevitably absent), but the Lady Mayoress was not, and tea was served, and »the members were shown around the House«. Later there was an »excellent performance« of Pygmalion. On Wednesday, 24 July »there was a Government Reception at Lancaster House. The members of the Congress were received by the Rt. Hon. Oliver Stanley, M.P., President of the Board of Education«, and refreshment was provided (no mention of tea this time) and »the members spent a most enjoyable evening in Lancaster House and its delightful grounds«. On Thursday afternoon, »a number of the members had an opportunity, through the generosity of the Port of London Authority, of making an excursion by boat down the Thames«, and »tea was served on the boat,« and »they very much appreciated the kindness of the Port of London Authority in providing for them the most enjoyable trip«. As for the Congress Dinner that evening, »Prof. Lloyd James proposed the toast of the Phonetic Sciences« and there were further speeches (one by Prof. Daniel Jones), and »an informal entertainment given by members of the Congress«, which included recitations, a mock lecture on Middle English, »A Phonetic Experiment«, a demonstration of Sign Language, a recitation of Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale (by the said Prof. Daniel Jones), and a humorous song entitled The Modern Phonetician, written and sung by Dr Palmer. »This programme was very much enjoyed by a large audience of the Congress and the guests, and the evening as a whole provided a fitting end to the social engagements of the week.«11 But the Prince was not amused. Trubetzkoy’s English improved with time and practice, and two reviews of books in English were eventually published (admittedly in German), one about Ibo, the other about Hottentot. However the entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica (not so surprisingly »Caucasian languages« when Sapir’s entry is »Central and North American Languages«) is obviously a translation.

11 Apart from the reference to the »idiotic film« all quotes in this paragraph are from Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (Jones, Fry (eds) 1936, 318).

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27

Twelf men haf twelf difinitiuns (indeed, indeed), and oon man hath tweye

In his Grundzîge (1939a, 108 – 110), Trubetzkoy refers to Jones’s renowned Outline of English Phonetics (1932). In spite of the use of the word phonetics in the title, Daniel Jones was not free of all theoretical or phonological ambition. Jones used the word phoneme frequently but his idea of the phoneme was poles apart from Trubetzkoy’s. His main definition was somewhat reminiscent of set theory.12 Considering he had taken a first degree in maths at Cambridge, this is not so surprising. 191. A phoneme is a family of sounds consisting of an important sound of the language (i. e. the most frequently used member of that family) together with other related sounds which take its place in particular sound-sequences. (Jones 1932, 48)

All the examples given happen to be of consonants. Jones goes on to complete the main definition: 198. Phonemes are capable of distinguishing one word of a language from other words in the same language. There is an English word /sin/ and another English word /siN/. […] The existence of such words is a proof that /n/ and /N/ are separate phonemes in English. (1932, 49 – 50)

So far, so good, still . . . If we turn to the chapter »The English Vowels in Detail«, we read: 241. There exist many shades of pure vowel-sound in Southern English. Of these twelve are of special importance for the foreign learner of English. They are represented in this book by the notation /i:, i, e, æ, A:, Ï, Ï:, u, u:, ˆ, «:, «/. (1932, 62)

Note the way Jones puts it: »Twelve are of special importance for the foreign learner of English.« As a foreign learner of English, I am entitled to ask for more but I am afraid that »more« could well be as unpalatable as Oliver Twist’s gruel. See the following:

12 Eleven quotations are from the second edition of An Outline of English Phonetics, Leipzig, 1932, because it is the edition used by Trubetzkoy, but there were no substantial changes during the book’s prolonged career.

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242. Four pairs of these vowels may be considered as belonging to simple phonemes, viz long /i:/ and short /i/, long /Ï:/, and short /Ï/, long /u:/, and short /u/, long /«:/ and short /«/. (1932, 62)

»More« is not exactly what we expected. Let us now turn to the English vowels in detail. Consider English Vowels No 1: /i:/, and No 2: /i/, and let us have /æ/ as well, to make sure that we are not misreading Jones. 246. /i:/ is the member of the English i-phoneme used when the vowel is relatively long. […] The letter /i/ without its length-mark stands for the members of the English i-phoneme used when the sound is relatively short. (1932, 63, 65)

Compare now /æ/. 276. The English phoneme represented by the symbol /æ/ may be regarded as comprising only one sound. (1932, 70)

There is no quibble about this. /i:/ and /I/ are sounds, both members of the English i-phoneme while /æ/ is a phoneme of its own. Even though /i:/ and /i/ are sounds, members of the English i-phoneme, Jones warns foreigners against confusion: »258. It is by no means uncommon to meet with foreigners who pronounce rich too much like reach and sit too much like seat.« (1932, 66) However this is a non-issue. These »sounds« are treated separately just because they are »of special importance for the foreign learner of English«. Foreigners are always a problem! We saw that the capability of distinguishing one word from the other was a defining property of the phoneme. If sounds cannot even do this, they are not phonemes, but if they can do this, it does not mean that they are phonemes. The capability of distinguishing one word from another is a necessary condition for a sound to be upgraded to phoneme but it is not a sufficient condition. Actually it appears – in the sense that there are no counterexamples – that it is a sufficient property for consonants but not for vowels. Vowels are always a problem! How come there are four pairs of vowel-sounds, each belonging to single phonemes? It seems that there is an unwritten rule specifying that when two vowels have the same place of articulation on the celebrated Jonesian trapeze, they are »sounds«. If they do not have the same place on the trapeze they are phonemes, unless they are »varieties« or »shades« of sounds. /i:/ and /i/ are

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members of the i-phoneme, i. e. sounds with a subsidiary difference in articulation… How do we know all this? Well, well, well… The proof of the pudding could be in the symbol /i/ as if the symbol were not an artefact. To cut a long story short, the whole thing is rather chaotic, and Trubetzkoy was fully entitled to be sceptical about the phonology of Daniel Jones. Jones claims that there are also nine diphthongs, all phonemes: /ei, ou, ai, au, Ïi, i«, e«, Ï«, u«/. And yet he says: »385. For the purpose of practical language teaching it is convenient to regard a diphthong as a succession of two vowels.« And just in case you missed the point he adds: »Thus in practical teaching it is convenient to regard the diphthong /ei/ as a succession two vowels /e/ and /i/, etc.« (1932, 96). As a matter of fact, in individual entries rising diphthongs are defined in terms of grapho-phonemics (e. g. »/ei/ is the so-called long sound of the letter a as in came«), and centring diphthongs are defined in those of articulatory phonetics (e. g. »/i«/ is a diphthong which starts at about the position of the English short /i/ and terminates at about /«3/«). There is no theoretical discussion at all in the chapter about diphthongs. It is not without reason that Jones assigns a number to each vowel and diphthong: from 1 to 21. The idea that there could be a structure underlying the vowels is unknown to him. From 1918 to 1964 An Outline of English Phonetics ran through nine editions each with at least »minor alterations« but Jones never reconsidered his theory. On his deathbed he still considered /i:/ and /i/ (the latter soon to become /I/ in Gimson’s revised edition) »members« of a single phoneme.

4.

The Trouble with English

Each time Trubetzkoy mentions English he grumbles and complains: »As for English I have formed no opinion as yet.« (Letter 74, 28 January 1931, 191).13 The English language suffers from excessive interest. Reporting to Jakobson on Vachek’s study of diphthongs (1933), he admits that Vachek is a brilliant young man but regrets that he should be misdirected: It remains that I am not satisfied with Vachek’s concrete conclusions, or more precisely with his theses. In my opinion, this is a »phonetic deviation«. It is difficult for a specialist of English to study phonology because the phonetics of English is very well documented and you fall under its influence against your will. Even 13 »?R Q^T\YZb[_] pXl[V p VjV ^V b_bcQSY\ bVRV ^Y[Q[_T_ ]^V^Yp.« Interestingly enough, this remark follows a discussion about the use of Silbenschnittkorrelation, or correlation of syllable cut, in German. See 5.

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Vachek did not avoid this danger. (Letter 115, 10 May 1933, 272)14

Thus, here he blames phoneticians for this constant dissatisfaction with English, there it is the language itself which is at fault. Referring to a new book by Trnka, A Phonological Analysis of Present-Day Standard English, Prague,1935, he says that »the part on vocalism turns out to be poor« but this is because the English vowel system is »extraordinarily absurd« (Letter 142, 17 May 1935, 334).15 Trubetzkoy had toyed with the idea that there could be a relationship of some sort between the language of a people and the character of this people. In Letter 30 (22 December 1926, 98), he takes Czech to elaborate on this assumption: For me, subjectively and intuitively, it is perfectly clear that between the general acoustic impression made by the Czech language and the psychological (and even the psycho-physical) features of the Czech people (the national character) there is some sort of internal link. This is an irrational impression, but who knows if beyond this the first inkling of a rational law is not hiding? To cut a long story short, I find fully justified the question as to not only why a given language, having chosen a particular path, has evolved this way and not that, but also why the said language, belonging to a certain people, has chosen this evolutionary path and not another one.16

In 1926, Trubetzkoy was indifferent to English. After a few years he was disturbed by this language. The account of his first visit to London in 1935 is reminiscent of the idea expressed in this passage. English did not follow the rules, any more than the English did. English was not a language among many, it was a puzzler, just like the English shilling or the right to walk on lawns. Trubetzkoy did not have the key to English phonology, or rather the key that had opened a hundred doors so far was useless with English. Actually, in 1935 Trubetzkoy was still

14 »þ_, cV] ^V ]V^VV, [_^[aVc^l]Y SlS_UQ]Y, c_h^VV cVXYbQ]Y 3Qx[Q p ^VdU_S\VcS_aV^. @_ ]_V]d, nc_ – ›e_^VcYhVb[YZ d[\_^’. 1^T\Ybcd cadU^_ XQ^Y]Qcmbp e_^_\_TYVZ, `_c_]d hc_ dW _hV^m f_a_i_ aQXaQR_cQ^Q Q^T\YZb[Qp e_^VcY[Q Y ^VS_\m^_ `_`QUQVim `_U VV S\Yp^YV. Nc_Z _`Qb^_bcY ^V YXRVWQ\ Y 3QfV[.« 15 »3 [^YTV Ca^[Y _cUV\ S_[Q\YX]Q b\QR_SQc, ^_ ^QU_ b[QXQcm, hc_ Q^T\YZb[YZ S_[Q\YX] – Yb[\ohYcV\m^_ ^V\V`.« 16 »5\p ]V^p bdRkV[cYS^_-Y^cdYcYS^_ b_SVaiV^^_ pb^_ ^Q`a., hc_ ]VWUd _RjY] Q[dbcYhVb[Y] S`VhQc\V^YV] hVib[_Z aVhY Y hVib[Y] `bYfYhVb[Y] (UQWV `bYf_eYXYhVb[Y]) _R\Y[_] (›^QgY_^Q\m^l] fQaQ[cVa_]‹) bdjVbcSdVc [Q[Qp c_ S^dcaV^^pp bSpXm. Nc_ Vbcm YaaQgY_^Q\m^_V S`VhQc\V^YV, – ^_ [c_ X^QVc, ^V b[alSQVcbp \Y XQ ^Y] `aVUhdSbcSYV [Q[_T_ c_ aQgY_^Q\m^_T_ XQ[_^Q? C._ ., S [_^gV [_^g_S S`_\^V `aQS_]VaV^ S_`a_b ^V c_\m[_, `_hV]d UQ^^lZ pXl[, SlRaQS cQ[_Z c_ `dcm, nS_\ogY_^Ya_SQ\ cQ[, Q ^V Y^QhV, – ^_ Y `_hV]d UQ^^lZ pXl[, `aY^QU\VWQjYZ UQ^^_]d ^Qa_Ud, SlRaQ\ Y]V^^_ cQ[_Z c_ `dcm nS_\ogYY, Q ^V UadT_Z.«

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unable to make sense of English phonology, and Jakobson failed to provide any help. Jakobson and Trubetzkoy were convinced that if a given language did not meet the requirements of »phonology«, it was likely that the responsibility was with the linguist, not the language. If the problem could not be solved by phonologists (in the true sense of this word of course), this meant that the language in question was some sort Unidentified Phonetic Object. Thus they agreed that English was a hybrid: Your considerations about the historical origin of the absurdity of English […] and about the similitude with the Russo-Norwegian and Russo-Chinese jargons could very likely be true. I have talked a lot with the above-mentioned student of Jones’s,17 and I have come to the conclusion that there was not one, but several systems in English, which differentiate partly by regional marks. As far as the standard language is concerned, it is an artificial compromise regulated by the orthoepic authorities (given that in America these authorities are not the same as in Europe). It is clear that under such circumstances the phonological aspect of language doesn’t have much weight? (Letter 137, 25 January 1935, 317 – 18).18

Russo-Norwegian and Russo-Chinese were two languages that, at a certain point in history, were each used by two restricted communities in contact, for the purpose of communication. This is clear : the language of Shakespeare, Doctor Johnson, Queen Victoria and George Bernard Shaw is … a pidgin. Then, how did English possibly manage to force its way into the Grundzîge? When Trubetzkoy met Jones in 1934, he had already definite ideas of what a phonological system could, and could not, be. For instance an arithmetic progression is not a model for a phonological system. Counting vowels from one to twenty-one in the Jonesian fashion is phonologically meaningless. Consider now the following figures:

17 A. C. Lawrenson, Jones’s man in Vienna and Prague (Letter 137, 25 January 1935, 135). Lawrenson had been sent by Jones to study phonology with Trubetzkoy. 18 »3QiY b__RaQWV^Yp _R Ybc_aYhVb[Yf `aYhY^Qf ^V\V`_bcY Q^T\YZb[_Z (Y eaQ^gdXb[_Z) e_^_\_TYY Y _ bf_UbcSV b adbb[_^_aS. Y adbb[_[Yc. WQaT_^Q]Y [QWdcbp ]^V haVXSlhQZ^_ `aQSU_`_U_R^l]Y. P cV`Vam ]^_T_ T_S_aY\ b SliVd`_]p^dcl] dhV^Y[_] 5W_^bQ Y `aYiV\ [ XQ[\ohV^Yo, hc_ S Q^T\YZb[_] pXl[V ^V _U^Q, Q ^Vb[_\m[_ bYbcV], UYeeVaV^gYa_SQ^^lf _chQbcY `_ \_[Q\m^_]d `aYX^Q[d. Hc_ WV [QbQVcbp U_ bcQ^UQac^_T_ pXl[Q, c_ nc_ Vbcm Yb[dbccSV^^lZ [_]`a_]Ybb, aVTd\YadV]lZ _ac_n`YhVb[Y]Y QSc_aYcVcQ]Y (`aY hV] S 1]VaY[V QSc_aYcVcl ^V cV WV, hc_ S 6Sa_`V). Pb^_ , hc_ `aY cQ[Yf db\_SYpf e_^_\_TYhVb[Qp bc_a_^Q pXl[Q _[QXlSQVcbp ]Q\_ bdjVbcSV^^_Z.«

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Figure 1 The Great Bear

Figure 2 The Great Bear in Jones’s trapeze

No human language, dead or alive, even yet unborn, has looked, is looking, or will look, anything like this, trapeze or no trapeze. In other words, the Great Bear is not a candidate for a vowel system. Now is Figure 3 below a candidate for a vowel system?

Figure 3 The English vowels (after Daniel Jones)

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Don’t say no too soon, because the dots are Jones’s English vowels (with the omission of the trapeze), so let’s have it back:

Figure 4 The English vowels in Jones’s trapeze (1932, 63; adapted)

This figure is a magnified representation of the articulation of English vowels in a simplified geometrical figure, but phonology is not phonetics made simple. For Jakobson and Trubetzkoy I would say that this figure is at best the pumpkin in the fairy tale, and a pumpkin that it is a long way from turning into Cinderella’s carriage. So, let us forward the question to Jakobson and Trubetzkoy. They were genuine discoverers, and they firmly believed that they had found the rules or the laws of phonology. And that it worked! Take Jakobson. Inspired by the contact with Czech after he moved from Moscow to Prague in late 1920, he set up a rule providing that quantity and stress as phonological elements were mutually exclusive. In fact, in Jakobson’s native Russian quantity is not used for the intellectual differentiation of words, while stress can be, and often is: ja placˇu = I weep ~ ja placˇu = I pay. Czech works the other way round. Quantity is a phonological element: dal with short a means ›he gave‹ and dl with long a means ›further‹, while stress is »fixed« (always on the first syllable) and thus deprived of any phonological function. In Jakobson’s own words (1922, SW 5, 23): Dynamic word stress is to be found as a phonological element only if it is accompanied by non-phonological quantitative relations. This is perfectly clear because more than once we perceive strength difference more weakly than differences in duration. From this alleged law derives another: If in the phonological system of any language, following phonetic change, came to coexist two independent elements, dynamic word stress and quantity, then either is forced out of the phonological system.19 19 »5Y^Q]YhVb[_V dUQaV^YV b\_SQ [Q[ e_^_\_TYhVb[YZ n\V]V^c S_X]_W^_ \Yim `_bc_\m[d, `_b[_\m[d V]d b_`dcbcSdoc S^VTaQ]]QcYhVb[YV [_\YhVbcSV^^lV _c^_iV^Yp. Nc_ S`_\^V `_^pc^_, YR_ ]l aQX\YhYp S bY\V b\liY] S ^Vb[_\m[_ aQX b\QRVV, hV] aQX\YhYp S U\YcV\m^_bcY. 9X `aYSVUV^^_T_ XQ[_^Q SlcV[QVc UadT_Z XQ[_^ :

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An avid reader, Jakobson had found in Husserl (1913, 261 – 266) a model for the formalisation of what he could hear in the street. Husserl’s Verhltnisse der Fundierung, i. e. relations of foundation, were well adapted to describe phonological systems, confirming the philosopher’s claim that »the generality of these relations [left] a clear field for all kinds of differences« (1913, 264).20 Basically, as revised by Jakobson (1929, 22) they come up as three implicational rules: - If a exists, b also exists; - If a exists, b is missing - If a is missing, b is also missing.

The exclusion of either quantity or stress as »phonological elements« falls under the second rule.21 There are many similar rules which come under one or another of the three Husserlian Verhltnisse der Fundierung but the mutual exclusion of stress and quantity is of special interest to us because it disqualifies English as a human language for it appears that English has both dynamic stress and quantity »as phonological elements« (an insult ~ to insult and reach ~ rich). For Trubetzkoy, it was not Czech, it was fresh air that did the trick. It all happened during the summer of 1928 as he was vacationing in the Austrian countryside. The weather was gorgeous, and he took many walks (Letter 41, 19 September 1928, 116). As he did not have the right books with him, he took it upon himself to reconstruct the vowel systems he knew by heart (34 altogether). Back in Vienna he added a dozen more. The main conclusion was this: all the systems boil down to a small number of types and can be represented by symmetrical patterns (as by quadrangular or triangular patterns …).22 The rule applies to »correlations«, as recently defined by Jakobson.23 If the description

Vb\Y S e_^_\_TYhVb[_Z bYbcV]V [Q[_T_-\YR_ pXl[Q S aVXd\mcQcV e_^VcYhVb[Yf YX]V^V^YZ S_X^Y[QVc b_bdjVbcS_SQ^YV USdf ^VXQSYbY]lf n\V]V^c_S : UY^Q]YhVb[_T_ dUQaV^Yp b\_SQ Y [_\YhVbcSQ, c_ _UY^ YX ncYf n\V]V^c_S Yb[\ohQVcbp YX e_^_\_TYhVb[_Z bYbcV]l.«

20 »Die Allgemeinheit dieser Verhltnisse lßt ja reichlichen Spielraum fîr die mannigfaltigsten Unterschiede.« 21 Jakobson stood by this rule to the end. »Languages where both length and stress appear as distinctive features are quite exceptional, and if the stress is distinctive it is mostly supplemented by redundant length.« (Jakobson, Halle 1956, 481) 22 The concept of markedness which introduces some sort of in-built asymmetry in language was still to be discovered. 23 »A phonological correlation is made of a series of binary oppositions defined by a common principle which may be construed independently of each pair of opposite terms.« (»Une corr¤lation phonologique est constitu¤e par une s¤rie d’oppositions binaires d¤finies par un principe commun qui peut Þtre pens¤ ind¤pendamment de chaque couple de termes oppos¤s.«), »Proposition au Premier Congrºs international de Linguistes«, 1928 (endorsed by N. Trubetzkoy and S. Karcevskij). Quantity is a correlation in Czech, but not in French even if

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reveals that the system is asymmetrical, the description has to be wrong.24 As can be guessed there is much cleaning to do to turn Jones’s pumpkin into a phonological carriage. Many at the time were prepared to meet the challenge. I will say a few words about the four that are cited in the relevant passage of Grundzîge, Vachek, Trnka, Lawrenson, Malone, beginning and ending the last part of this chapter with the Master.

5.

Picking up the Gauntlet

There is no criticism of Jones’s inconsistencies in Trubetzkoy’s published writings. It is enough that he should report in one of the letters to Jakobson that people say that Jones is a simpleton (Letter 130, [May] 1934, 299).25 Instead he blamed Vachek for a frontal attack against the Great Man that he thought was a blunder (Letter 112, 30 November 1932, 262).26 As he would not have two enemies, »General« Jones and the English language, he chose the English language, and used Jones’s Outline as phonetic evidence from a native. The first reference to English in Trubetzkoy’s scientific works is in the German article »Zur allgemeinen Theorie der phonologischen Vokalsysteme« (1929, 53). Roughly, there are three problems with English. - Problem no. 1 is the apparent coexistence of quantity and stress as phonological elements. - Problem no. 2 is the constitution of the subsystem of the so-called short vowels. - Problem no. 3 is the constitution of the subsystem of the so-called long vowels.

Problem no. 1. In the first part of this article, Trubetzkoy had pledged allegiance to Jakobson’s phonological flag (1929, 42). It is understood once for all that stress and quantity are mutually exclusive. Explaining that it is either one or the other, but never both, he used intensity as a blanket term. Intensity can be realized either as stress or as quantity. It can be maximal or minimal. Minimal intensity is realized at phonetic level by unstressed or short vowel phonemes. Maximal intensity is similarly realized either as stressed or long vowel phonemes. Nevwe take the opposition short a (patte) ~ long a (p’te) to differ phonologically in terms of quantity. 24 Letter 44 contains a refutation of Jakobson’s presentation of Old Slavic, because it is asymmetrical. 25 »?^ `_apU_h^lZ RQ\UQ, T_S_apc.« 26 J. Vachek (1932) »Daniel Jones and the Phoneme«, in Charisteria Gvilelmo Mathesio quinquagenario a discipulis et Circuli linguistici Pragensis sodalibus oblata, Prague.

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ertheless he concludes piteously (or one could say with laudable honesty) that »the phonological difference between the expiratory and quantitative representation of intensity does exist but in few languages which possess equally free stress and free quantity. I know only of two such languages – the German and the English« (1929, 43). By definition exceptions are not to be discussed. An exception is an exception. That is all. However one might wonder how many exceptions it takes before a law is no longer a law. Problems 2 and 3. Trubetzkoy’s general idea is that phonological systems fall under very few types. All the phonological systems he had studied and compared »revealed several integral laws of symmetrical patterning« (Jakobson’s phrasing in his foreword to Trubetzkoy 1975, x). Squeezed in between Hungarian and Polabian, there is English which is supposed to illustrate the coexistence of a triangular arrangement of long vowels with a quadrangular arrangement of short vowels: Figure 5 The English Vowels (Trubetzkoy 1929, 53) ¯ı u¯ e-. o-. min. intens. max. e„ Ï-„ intens. a¯

i e æ

«

u o ffi27

Trubetzkoy used the traditional symbols for long monophthongs but he must have had a guilty conscience for in a footnote he apologizes that /e-./ is more often than not a diphthong. Using the systems recommended by Daniel Jones at that time (left) and by the present editors of his Pronouncing Dictionary (right), what we have is this: Figure 6 Trubetzkoy’s system of long vowels in the transcription used in the English Pronouncing Dictionary (left: 3rd edn; right: 16th edn) i u: i u: ei ou eI «U e« Ï: e« Ï: A: A:

Trubetzkoy’s transcription makes sense if we take the diphthongization of /ei/, /e«/ and /ou/ as a phonetic artefact and the absence of /ai/, /Ïi/, /au/, /i«/ and /u«/ on the diagram as evidence that these are full-scale diphthongs, to be treated separately. It was clear to Vachek (1933), who was making a reputation as an idol-breaker, 27 /ffi/ is for /ˆ/, not for IPA /ffi/.

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N.S. Trubetzkoy, England and the English Language

that Trubetzkoy’s analysis could be improved. He had no second thoughts about short vowels and adopted Trubetzkoy’s view without batting an eyelid, but he reshuffled the long vowels to include the rising diphthongs /ai/ and /au/ (but not /Ïi/) which had been left out by Trubetzkoy. Figure 7 The vowels of English (J. Vachek 1933, 133) Ii ˛: Uu I aU eI Ï: oU e ffi aI a: aU æ ˆ Extensive vowel phonemes Limited vowel phonemes

I

«

Vowel phonemes in unstressed syllables

Vowel phonemes in stressed syllables

As for Jakobson’s law, he quite agreed with it. He simply denied the existence of quantity because he acknowledged the existence of only two quantitative pairs in English, /i:/ and /i/, on the one hand, /u: /and /u/ on the other, while rejecting /Ï:/ and /Ï/ and insisting that it takes at least three pairs to make a »correlation«. In the French article »La phonologie actuelle,« Trubetzkoy (1934, Pariente (ed.) 1969, 152) gives examples with three pairs of correlated phonemes but he never says that two is not enough. Trnka (1935, 13) confirms the validity of Jakobson’s law as well. He also confirms that there are quantity and stress oppositions in English. What’s the trick, then? Easy does it. To insult ~ an insult is a morphological opposition, not a phonological one. Once again Jakobson’s law is saved. Trnka (1935, 15) may have taken his cue from Trubetzkoy (1929, 43), in which the author states that there is after all a difference between phonetic stress and quantity, in as much as there is one and only one stressed vowel in a word while there might be several long vowels, but adds that this is not an objection to the phonological principle of phonological equivalence of stress and quantity because this remark belongs to the domain of morphology, not phonology. Trnka (1935, 13) further agrees with Trubetzkoy and Vachek about the system of short vowels. »If we put Prince Trubetzkoy’s theory to the test for English, it certainly holds good. The system of English stressed short vowels is a quadrangular one.« However he does not think much of Trubetzkoy’s view of long vowels, and offers the following: Figure 8 The long vowels of English (Trnka 1935, 14) I: I« u« ei e« «: ai ai« au« A:

u: ou au Ï:

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At that point in the development of phonological theory, references to the linguistic consciousness were judged scientifically valid, and Trnka disqualified Vachek’s argument about the pair /Ï:/ and /Ï/ by appealing to the linguistic consciousness of natives: »English speakers« he claims »feel the three long vowels unmistakably correspond to the short ones and this feeling of correspondence entitles us to the assumption that the correlation of quantity is represented in English.« (1935, 11) The next authors cited by Trubetzkoy (1939, 1949, 127 – 28), Lawrenson and Malone, are both native speakers of English. It is interesting to see if they are of the same mind. A.C. Lawrenson (1936, 133) rejects the quadrangle for short vowels in favour of a triangle: Figure 9 The checked vowels of English (Lawrenson 1936, 133) I « e ˆ ffi æ

U

As for long vowels, he makes a point of including /Ïi/, and uses the middle row as shelter for the homeless, /˛:/, /Ïi/, /aU/ and /A:/. Referring to /ÏI/ and /aU/, he specifies: »In the strictly phonetic sense, they are not central vowels or diphthongs at all; from the point of view of the correlation of timbre [front vs back], they must be allotted the mixed row.« (Jones and Fry (eds) 1936, 133) The reason is that /ÏI/ has a back nucleus and a front glide, and /aU/ has a front nucleus and a back glide. Interestingly, Lawrenson suggests that where we thought was a correlation of quantity, there is a correlation of checked and unchecked vowels – which is called Silbenschnittkorrelation in German, a correlation of syllable cut. Once again, Jakobson’s law emerges unscathed. Figure 10 The unchecked vowels of English (Lawrenson 1936, 133) Ii ˛: eI ÏI aI aU Ï: A:

oU

Uu

Last in Trubetzkoy’s bibliography comes the American scholar Kemp Malone (1936). Malone blames Trnka for his definition of /Ï/ as a mid vowel, and of /ˆ/ as a low. He also disagrees with the treatment of the unstressed vowel, taking /I/ as one phoneme, whether stressed or unstressed, and regards /«/ in Trnka as a mere variant of /ˆ/. Unlike Trnka he claims that the centring diphthongs and triphthongs are not diphthongs or triphthongs at all but sequences of several independent phonemes.

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N.S. Trubetzkoy, England and the English Language Figure 11 The vowels of English (Malone 1936, 162) Short vowels Long vowels i u e ˆ ˛: æ ffi A: Ï:

glides ii ei ai

uu ou au

Following the 1929 article, Trubetzkoy is back with the Grundzîge (posthumous, 1939). He first claims that the so-called »short« vowels pose no problem at all. All four researchers, he says, agree that they form a quadrangular system comprising two classes of timbre (understand »front« and »back«) and three degrees of sonority (understand »open«, »mid«, »closed«). Not all, in fact. As we saw Lawrenson has a triangle with three degrees of timber and three degrees of sonority. True, the rest have a quadrangle, but Trubetzkoy (1929), Vachek (1933) and Trnka (1935) put /ˆ/ on the bottom line, and /Ï/ just above. As we have seen, Malone does not agree, and reverses the position of /ˆ/ and /Ï/. Trubetzkoy ignores Malone’s criticism. Yet evidence is on the side of Malone.28 None of the phonologists concerned takes the trouble to justify his choice. And yet the case is clear. Trubetzkoy, Vachek and Trnka join together a mid front vowel with a low back, and a low front with a mid back. If for the sake of phonology such an operation is permitted, then we are just within a step of turning the Great Bear into the representation of a phonological system.

Figure 12 Phonology at the crossroads (Left: Trubetzkoy 1929, Vachek 1932, Trnka 1935; right: Malone 1936)

Of the five writers studied, Trubetzkoy is the one who goes the furthest into the monophonematic hypothesis, taking in all types of diphthongs, including centring diphthongs and the so-called triphthongs as phonemes, excluding only /Ïi/. As for the critical question of whether there is a correlation between any of the so-called short and long vowels, Trubetzkoy (1939, 1949) comes to the conclusion that what we have is a Silbenschnittkorrelation, as in some German 28 In their celebrated Sound Pattern of English, 1968, Chomsky and Halle stand by Malone with a [– low – high] feature bundle for /ˆ/, just like /e/.

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dialects. A short vowel in fact is a vowel which is interrupted in its development by the following consonant while a »long« vowel is »fully developed«. Silbenschittkorrelation is the key Trubetzkoy had long been looking for while refraining from using it when he first found it. It is more than likely that he had passed on word and concept to Lawrenson. As early as 1931 (Letter 74, 28 January 1931, 227) he had made use of Silbenschnittkorrelation to describe German dialects but he had been unable to make up his mind to apply it to English. He eventually took the plunge. Once again Jaksobson’s law was spared. The system of »long«, or »uninterrupted« vowels of English (»voffablaufendun Vokalphooneme«), possibly the richest of all of his descriptions of phonological systems in Grundzîge, respects his own laws of symmetry as well. It looks as if English had at last been readmitted into the concert of languages. Figure 13 The uninterrupted vowels of English (Trubetzkoy 1939a, 109) i: i« u« «: ei e« Ï« Ai

Ai«

A:

Au«

u: ou Au

Yet the real nature of the phonological difference between »long« and »uninterrupted«, and the reason why quantity precludes the existence of stress as a phonological element, while Silbenschnittkorrelation does not, remain unclear. Comforted by the opinion of the majority as far as short vowels were concerned, Trubetzkoy had changed his mind radically about long vowels. In 1929 he was desperate to show that diphthongs were not diphthongs but long vowels. Writing in 1937 – 38, he was eager to show that long vowels were not long vowels but diphthongs. In the meantime he had read Vachek and Trnka, he had taken their criticism into account, and he knew that the younger generation was eagerly waiting for the Prince-Professor to put a final end to the debate. He was perfectly conscious that his »ingenious theory« was not as yet clear on »minor points« (Trnka 1935, 10). He was no less eager to comply. There is no doubt that the system that Trubetzkoy put forward is »elegant« and more »powerful« than those of his predecessors. Whatever his intention was, he had captured the reflexes of the Middle English long vowels (outer columns) and the output of r influence (inner columns). As in many other languages though, the English phonological system is not fully symmetrical. Once upon a time there was a triangular system for short vowels. In some Northern dialects the system has remained unchanged. In Southern British English, English /U/ has given birth to /ˆ/. /U/ is still alive though, and very much so. /ˆ/ is a maverick, which, starting from the /U/ po-

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sition, has been drifting for several centuries through the wilderness of the centre of the trapeze, a strange bedfellow for front /æ/ (see Figure 12). Unlike its look-alikes /ai/ and /ei/, the phoneme /Ïi/ does not take part in any alternation. The idea that English is made up of different dialects was far from ridiculous after all, but what language is not? Many objections to Trubetzkoy’s presentation of the English vowel system come to mind. He adopted Trnka’s definition of /aI/ as front and /aU/ as back. This is fine if you take the etymons, Middle English /ı¯/ and /u¯/, but it is more difficult to swallow that /aU/ is a back vowel. How come the triphthongs, by definition characterized by bisyllabicity, are treated as simple phonemes? Nobody will deny Trubetzkoy the right to take the vowel of lore as a centring diphthong if he sees it that way, but not that of law. He simply forgot, or just did not know, that when followed by r, the reflex of long o as in lo has merged with the sound of law, but that only the former has a diphthongized variant. Where has /Ï:/ as in law gone then? On pourrait multiplier les exemples, Trubetzkoy himself used to say. Talking at the Prague Structuralism and Language System Conference, Craig Callender (2007) said: »Trubetzkoy was a pioneer, he was ahead of his time, he did not have the modern apparatus of phonology, but he had the ideas.« I could not agree more. His treatment of English is an exception. The so-called phonemes of English have been forced into a beautiful but rather artificial arrangement. As this chapter is coming to a close I am inclined to see Trubetzkoy both as prisoner of Jakobson’s law and of his own laws, as heauntontimoroumenos, the self-punisher, a great mind, but one that made its own shackles. Meanwhile though, phonological shibboleths are respected. All is well that ends well.

References: Callender, Craig (2007) »Representing Geminates: From Trubetzkoy to Autosegmental Phonology,« paper delivered at the Prague Structuralism and Language System Conference, Prague, 19 October 2007. Chomsky, Noam, Morris Halle (1968) The Sound Pattern of English, New York: Harper and Row. Havrnek, Bohuslav (ed.) (1939) »Bibliographie des travaux de N.S. Troubetzkoy,« Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 8, 335 – 42. Husserl, Edmund (1913) Logische Untersuchungen, zweiter Band, erster Teil, second edn, Halle: Max Niemeyer. Jakobson, Roman O. (1922) O cˇesˇskom stixe preimusˇcˇestvenno v sopostavlenij s russkim [On Czech Verse, as Confronted with Russian], Berlin; Moscow: Sborniki po teorii

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poeticˇeskogo jazyka, 5, Moscow Linguistic Circle and Opojaz. revised edition in Selected Writings, 5. Jakobson, Roman O., N.S. Trubetzkoy and S.I. Karcevskij (1928) »Quelles sont les m¤thodes les mieux appropri¤es ” un expos¤ complet et pratique de la grammaire d’une langue quelconque?«, Premier Congrºs International de Linguistes, Propositions, Nijmegen, 36 – 39, and Actes du 1er Congrºs International de Linguistes du 10 – 14 avril, 1928, Leiden, 1930, 33 – 36. Selected Writings, 1, 3 – 6. [Known as »Propositions au Premier Congrºs international de Linguistes.«] Jakobson, Roman O. (1929) Remarques sur l’¤volution phonologique du russe compar¤e ” celle des autres langues slaves [Observations on the Phonological Evolution of Russian, as Confronted with the Other Slavic Languages], Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague, 2; Selected Writings 1, 7 – 116. Jakobson, Roman O. (1962 – 1988) Selected Writings, 8 vols, The Hague, Berlin: Mouton. [Abridged as SW] Jakobson, Roman O., Morris Halle (1956) »Phonology and Phonetics,« in Fundamentals of Language, The Hague: Mouton. Selected Writings, 1, 481 – 504. Jones, Daniel (1932) An Outline of English Phonetics, third edn, Leipzig: Teubner. Jones, Daniel, D.B. Fry (eds) (1936) Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lawrenson, A.C. (1936) »Some Observations on the Phonology of the English Vowels,« in Jones, Daniel, D.B. Fry (eds) (1936), 131 – 134. Malone, Kemp (1936) »Phonemes and Phonemic Correlations in Current English,« English Studies 18, 159 – 164. S¤riot, Patrick (2006) »Pr¤sentation,« in N.S. Trubetzkoy (2006), 5 – 14. Trnka, Bohumil (1935) A Phonological Analysis of Present-Day Standard English, Prce z veˇdecky´ch fflstavu˚, 37, Studies in English by Members of the Charles University 5, Prague. Trubetzkoy, N.S. (1929) »Zur allgemeinen Theorie des phonologischen Vokalsysteme,« Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 1, 39 – 67. Trubetzkoy, Prince N. (1933) »La phonologie actuelle,« Journal de psychologie, Paris, 30, 227 – 246; reprinted in Pariente, Jean-Claude ed. (1969), Essais sur le langage, Paris: Editions de Minuit, 14 – 64. Trubetzkoy, N.S. (1939a) Grundzîge der Phonologie, Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 7. Trubetzkoy, N.S. (1939b) »Gedanken îber das Indogermanenproblem,« Acta linguistica 1, 2, 81 – 89. [Russian original, »Mysli ob indoevropejskoj probleme,« Voprosy jazykoznanija, Moscow, 1, 1958, 65 – 77 and Izbrannye trudy po filologii, Moscow: Progress, 1987, 44 – 59.] Trubetzkoy, N.S. (1975) N.S. Trubetzkoy’s Letters and Notes, ed. Roman Jakobson, The Hague: Mouton. Troubetzkoy, N.S. (2006) Correspondance avec Roman Jakobson et autres ¤crits, French trans. of Trubetzkoy (1975) Patrick S¤riot and Margarita Schçnenberger, ed. Patrick S¤riot, Lausanne: Payot. Vachek, Josef (1932) »Daniel Jones and the Phoneme,« in Charisteria Gvilelmo Mathesio quinquagenario a discipulis et Circuli linguistici Pragensis sodalibus oblata, Prague, 25 – 33. Vachek, Josef (1933) »˜ber die phonologische Interpretation der Diphthonge mit be-

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sonderer Berîcksichtigung des Englischen,« Prce z veˇdecky´ch fflstavu˚, 28, Studies in English by Members of the Charles University 3, Prague, 86 – 170. Viel, Michel (1984) La notion de »marque« chez Trubetzkoy et Jakobson: Un ¤pisode de l’histoire de la pens¤e structurale, Lille: Atelier national des thºses; Paris: DidierErudition. Viel, Michel (2007) rev. of S¤riot (2006), Etudes anglaises, Paris, 2007 / 4, 483 – 487.

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Craig Callender

Trubetzkoy, Autosegmental Phonology and the Segmental Status of Geminates1

1.

Introduction

The most commonly-accepted approach in modern phonological theory for the representation of geminates is the Autosegmental framework, according to which geminates constitute one phonological segment, but are long and occupy two X-slots (or morae) in a timing tier. In this chapter I will argue that Trubetzkoy anticipated this approach in two ways. First, he claimed that geminates were long monophonemes at syllable boundaries, and as such closed one syllable and opened another. Second, he said that geminates were biphonemic in languages where they occurred at morpheme boundaries. Both of these claims were later fleshed out by linguists working within the framework of Autosegmental phonology (cf. Goldsmith 1990). The chapter has the following structure: in section 2 we will discuss the representation of geminates in Autosegmental phonology. In section 3 we will discuss some cross-linguistic evidence for the representation described in section 2. Section 4 will cover true and apparent geminates, with attention to the importance of morpheme boundaries to our analysis of the segmental status of geminates. Section 5 will discuss the extent to which Trubetzkoy anticipated the ideas of Autosegmental phonology, and section 6 will offer some concluding remarks.

1 For their helpful suggestions, I would like to thank Eric Holt and Kurt Goblirsch, along with ˇ ermk and the participants of the 2007 Prague School and Theories of Structure meeting. Jan C Mistakes and omissions are my own.

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Craig Callender

Geminates in Autosegmental Phonology

Let us begin with a working definition of geminates. A geminate can best be understood as a long consonant at a syllable boundary. Geminates are monosegmental, yet bisyllabic, are in phonological opposition to singleton consonants in a language, and are produced in one articulatory gesture. Because geminates occur at syllable boundaries, they are typically found word-medially, yet there are some cases of geminates in non-medial position (see Callender 2006, 30 – 43 for an overview of non-medial geminates). Goldsmith (1990), originally published in 1976, formulated the Autosegmental analysis of geminates. He made four generalizations about geminates. First, geminates act like sequences of consonants, rather than consonants marked [+long]. This is accounted for in Autosegmental theory by the fact that they receive two positions on the timing tier. Second, geminates are allowed in positions where sequences of consonants are disallowed. Third, epenthesis rules that break up consonant sequences fail to apply if they would split the halves of a geminate. Finally, geminates are inalterable; rules either affect an entire geminate, i. e., both halves, or fail to affect it at all (1990, 77). In order that we might see Autosegmental theory in action, example (1) shows how it would model the Italian word tutto ›everything‹, which contains a geminate /t/.

We see that there are three tiers in the model. The top tier, the syllabic tier, shows us that we are dealing with two syllables. The second tier is our segmental tier, where we see that our geminate /t/ is only one segment. It is, however, connected to two syllable nodes. The bottom tier is a timing tier, and represents length. Our monosegmental /t/ is connected to two C-nodes, which shows us that it is long. With one model we are thus able to capture the facts that geminates are 1) bisyllabic, 2) monosegmental, and 3) long. Most phonologists who work on geminates agree with this model (see for example Kraehenmann 2001, 29). Levin (1985) proposed X-slots instead of C and V slots, which has the potential advantage of leaving out redundant segmental information. In X-theory, tutto would look like this:

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Within Autosegmental phonology, Moraic Theory is another alternative to CV and X-slot theories. In earlier uses of the term mora (see Trubetzkoy 1938, Lehiste 1970), morae were simply units of phonological quantity, and there was no difference between morae or timing units (X or CV slots), which had not yet been proposed. Within Moraic Theory, Italian tutto would be modeled as follows:

Hayes (1989) is a leading proponent of Moraic Theory. His analysis differs from segmental theories that use CV or X structure, in that it attempts to capture the language-specific nature of prosodic structure. Hayes claimed that languagespecific weight contrasts are not captured in segmental theories. For example, Hayes claimed that in Latin, CV syllables are light, whereas CVC and CVV are heavy. In Lardil, by contrast, only CVV is heavy ; CVC and CV are both light (1989, 254 – 55). Whereas X theory assigns uniform timing slots, moraic theory allows for language-specific mora assignment. In Latin, a VC sequence would be assigned two morae, whereas in Lardil it would only be assigned one. However, as Kraehenmann (2003) notes, moraic theory requires stipulations; ad hoc mora assignment is necessary for each language. In theory, we could just as easily assign only one X slot to the rhymes of CVC syllables in Lardil. Hayes also claimed that moraic theory accounts for compensatory lengthening better than segmental theories do. For example, Ilokano has a rule of compensatory gemination; stops are lengthened before glides: bagi + en = baggyen ›to have as one’s own‹.2 In X theory, this is accounted for via ›double flop‹. The /i/ in bagi + en flops onto the X slot of /e/; /g/ is then lengthened via a 2 In this chapter I have chosen to retain the orthographic conventions used by the authors cited, since they do not interfere with the argument that I am advancing.

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second flop onto the X slot formerly occupied by /i/. The problem, according to Hayes, is that /gg/, which is of course in coda and onset position, occupies the X slots that had formerly contained an onset and a nucleus (1989, 272 – 73). Moraic theory ostensibly eschews the problem in the following manner : /i/ is delinked from its mora, and /g/, which is not attached to a mora, is delinked from its syllable node. /g/ and /i/ are then linked to the following syllable, and /g/ spreads leftward to the mora that had been left stranded by /i/ (Hayes 1989, 271). Kraehenmann (2003, 26) criticized moraic theory on the grounds that it does not predict word-initial geminates, since syllable onsets are weightless. However, there are some languages that allow word-initial geminates in sandhi, including the Swiss German dialect that Kraehenmann studied. Another problem with moraic theory, Kraehenmann claims, is that not all singletons are weightbearing, whereas all geminates are. Therefore, it is possible to have languages in which syllables are heavy if closed by geminates and light if closed by singletons. However, she notes that in most languages VC syllables are either categorically heavy or light (2003, 23). Nevertheless, Zec (1995) provides evidence that there are some languages that treat VC syllables as heavy in some cases and light in others, although Zec did not address the issue of syllables being closed by geminates vs. singletons; she was interested in the sonority of the coda consonant. I think that both X-slot (or CV) theory and moraic theory are able to handle geminates. Because neither X-slot theory nor moraic theory is empirically real, but only a model and expository device, I am not particularly disturbed by the fact that a geminate arising through compensatory lengthening occupies timingtier slots that had formerly been an onset and nucleus. The existence of syllableinitial sandhi geminates could present a problem for moraic theory’s claim that syllable onsets are categorically weightless, but that could be rectified by stipulating that, since geminates are always weight bearing, they are exempt from the rule that syllable onsets are weightless. This could be accomplished by ranking the constraints (as in Optimality Theory, for example), such that the universality of geminate weight (in all positions) is ranked above the rule that onsets are weightless. Furthermore, since a geminate is linked to two syllables, the morabearing half could be in the coda of the first syllable, which would allow for word-initial geminates, despite the prohibition on moraic onsets. Therefore, either model will work fine for representing geminates. All we really need is to be able to represent the fact that geminates are long, monosegmental and bisyllabic. In fact, Keer (1999) saw no need to distinguish between moraic theory and CV or X-slot theory for his analysis; he only compared moraic theory to Selkirk’s two-root theory. I agree that, for the purposes of modeling geminates, it is a rather insignificant point whether we use morae or timing slots. Early use of the

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word mora (cf. Trubetzkoy 1938a, 168) referred simply to quantity, and did not differ substantively from the timing units of X-slot or CV theory.

3.

Evidence for a Multi-tiered Account

In this section we will cover some of the arguments that have been advanced in favour of a bisegmental vs. a monosegmental analysis of geminates. In section 3.3, it will become clear why the Autosegmental framework enjoys support by most phonologists working on geminates.

3.1

Bisegmental Analyses of Geminates

Braune and Mitzka (1886) was one of the earliest bisegmental analyses of geminates. We must bear in mind though that they did not specifically address the question of the segmental status of geminates, and were not doing a phonological analysis. They did, however, compare geminates in OHG to orthographic doublets in modern German, and emphasize that geminates were realized as two independently pronounced consonants in OHG (1963, 89). Catford also favoured a bisegmental analysis of geminates, noting that »in spite of the continuity of articulation the bi-segmental nature of the sequence is made clear by the presence of a syllable division within the period of maintained articulation« (1977, 210). Catford’s contribution is also noteworthy for its distinction between ›phonetically geminate sequences‹, which are found in English bookcase, good dog, etc, and actual geminates, which are tautomorphemic. We shall see below that the issue of morpheme boundaries is important to determining whether we are dealing with true or apparent geminates, to borrow the terminology of Goldsmith (1990). Loporcaro (1996) cites a number of Italian dialects in his argument in favour of a bisegmental analysis of Italian geminates. In Tuscan dialects, for example, /e/ and /Ï/ become diphthongized in open syllables, but not in syllables followed by consonant clusters or geminates: /vje:ne/ ›comes‹, but /erba/ ›grass‹, /pet:o/ ›chest‹. In other words, geminates pattern like consonant clusters, in that they close preceding syllables and block diphthongization. This, Loporcaro argues, is evidence to support a bisegmental analysis of Italian geminates (1996, 166). However, like the other dialect data that Loporcaro presents, these data are also consistent with an analysis of geminates as long, bisyllabic monosegments. In the dialect of Lunigiana in Northwestern Tuscany, /e/ and /Ï/ are raised in open syllables (Bottiglioni 1911, Masetti 1972). Thus we find /meo/ ›honey‹ and /foko/ ›fire‹ alongside /erba/ ›grass‹, /fer:o/ ›iron‹, /pÏsta/ ›handful of hay‹ and

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/fjÏk:o/ ›bow‹. Once again, we find that the geminated forms pattern like the forms with consonant clusters, i. e., the first syllable is closed by the first half of the geminate, and the sound change is blocked (Loporcaro 1996, 167). In the dialect of Agnone, in Molise in southeastern Italy, /a/ and /i/ are diphthongized in open syllables (Ziccardi 1910): /seane/ ›whole‹, /vecˇoine/ ›near‹, but /mald«/ ›mortar‹, /kwak:«/ ›rennet‹, /cˇitr«/ ›boy‹, /fik:«/ ›son‹. Here we find /a/ ! /ea/ and /i/ ! /oi/ in open syllables, but not in closed ones. Since we do not find the change before geminates, we may conclude that the first half of the geminate closes the syllable and blocks the change, similar to consonant clusters (Loporcaro 1996, 169). Selkirk (1991, 126) also argued in favour of a bisegmental analysis, with geminates represented as two root nodes. In an attempt to refute claims about the inalterability of geminates, she cites evidence of laryngeal fission, i. e., modification of one half of a geminate (1991, 128). In Klamath, a Native American language of Oregon, for example, voiceless, voiced and glottalized stops are neutralized, becoming voiceless within syllable rhymes. This rule affects the first halves of geminates as well, such that glottalized [p’p’] becomes [pp’], and [dd] becomes [td]; so when the /d/ of [godi:la] ›goes under‹ is doubled, we end up with a geminate with laryngeal fission, namely [gotdi:la] ›goes around under‹. The rule apparently applies irrespective of whether the geminate is underlying, or arises via morpheme concatenation or reduplication (Selkirk 1991, 130). What this shows is that it is indeed possible for rules to affect one half of a geminate. This is important, because the claim that geminates either block phonological rules, or undergo them entirely (i. e., with both halves affected), is central to monosegmental analyses. Although such cases of laryngeal fission may be rare, Selkirk’s data cannot be dismissed. They indicate that the segmental status of geminates, while typically monosegmental, may be language-specific. So while there is a universal tendency for geminates to be monosegmental, this may not to be an inviolable law. On the other hand, in the case of [gotdi:la], we are probably not dealing with a true geminate (see section 4).

3.2

Monosegmental Analyses of Geminates

Trubetzkoy (1938a, 1938b, 1958) was one of the first scholars to offer a monosegmental analysis of geminates. He was aware, however, that geminates differed from singleton consonants. Just like the Autosegmental phonologists working on geminates in the 1970s and 1980s, he knew that geminates sometimes exhibited behavior that was not like singleton consonants. Trubetzkoy’s ideas will be the focus of further discussion in section 5. Before then, let us consider some other proposals for monosegmental analyses of geminates.

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Abercrombie (1967, 82) defined a geminate as a segment extending across two syllables, as opposed to a long consonant, which was confined to one. Nevertheless, he used the term ›double consonant‹ rather than ›geminate‹. Seynnaeve claimed that there was no real difference between a long consonant and a geminate except syllabification (1987, 435). A similar analysis was also proposed by Goblirsch (1999, 57). Dieth and Brunner (1943) provided instrumental phonetic evidence for a monosegmental analysis of geminates, although they were more concerned with the phonetic data themselves rather than their phonological interpretation. They used instruments to determine oral air pressure, air movement within the oral cavity, tongue pressure in dental consonant articulations and movement of the lower jaw and larynx (1943, 739 – 41). According to their experiments, geminates are produced in one articulatory gesture, not two, which incidentally was one of Trubetzkoy’s criteria for single phonemes (Trubetzkoy 1958, 51-52). Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996, 92) and Kraehenmann (2001, 29) also argued in favour of a monosegmental analysis of geminates based on the fact that they are normally produced in one articulatory movement in most languages. However, as Jeannette Denton has pointed out, one continuous series of gestures may be a more appropriate description of the facts, as closure + release are really two articulatory gestures (personal communication). Dieth and Brunner argued that the difference between a long consonant and a geminate is that a geminate contains a syllable boundary, which is ascertainable as a minimum using phonetic tests (1943, 738). The nature of the minimum depends on the consonant in question. For the stops /t, d, p, b/ they ascertained a minimum of intraoral air pressure during production of the geminate. For /t, d, n/ they found a minimum of muscular tension, and for the fricatives /s, S/ they found a tongue pressure minimum, but an air pressure maximum. Similarly, Bohnenberger (1953), working on Alemannic and Swabian dialects of German, claimed that there is an audible pause in the middle of geminate consonants. One potential criticism of the phonetic evidence in Dieth and Brunner (1943) is that it does not prove that geminates are one phonological segment, i. e., a bisegmental analysis of geminate stops would not necessarily predict two air pressure curves in an instrumental phonetic analysis. This is a valid point, as phonetics and phonology are separate domains. They are not entirely unrelated however, and while Dieth and Brunner’s data do not give us definitive proof for a monosegmental analysis of geminates, they do provide another piece of the puzzle. Keer (1999), working within Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993), also favors a monosegmental analysis, because geminates behave like monosegments in several respects. In Faroese, for example, preaspirated simplex velars palatalize before /i/, and so do geminates. So vahki becomes vahcˇi

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›wake‹, and lahk:i becomes lahcˇ :i ›lower‹. The fact that palatalization affects the entire geminate, and that the form *lahkcˇi does not occur, is evidence that Faroese geminates are monosegmental (Keer 1999, 22). Trumper et al. provided evidence for a monosegmental analysis of geminates in Italian based on the fact that vowel epenthesis does not occur in geminates. So while forms like psicologia ! pisicologia ›psychology‹ and tecnico ! techinico ›technician‹ are possible for consonant clusters, geminates cannot be split by epenthesis (Trumper et al. 1991, 332). Thus forms such as *tutito ( l\ook here# b> this is not** going to get on to the p\olitics of th/is thing#

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b> we’re trying to find \out# b> about foxes and human b\eings# (LLC 5.6 1005 – 1009)5 Look here occurs in a debate about fox-hunting. Look is used to gain the floor and to ›put the other person in his or her place‹. Look and listen provide »metaphorical urgency for emphasis«, i. e., the speaker speaks »as if maximum efficiency were very important« (Brown and Levinson 1978, 101). Look is found before commands or requests, which can be expected on account of its urgency meaning. However, in addition to urgency and efficiency social relationships are important. Politeness and ›efficiency‹ can be looked upon as competing forces in discourse. In the informal conversations with adolescents, social similarity, group-membership and solidarity with other members of the group may also be important. Thus even when look (or listen) is used with very direct forms such as imperatives (›commands‹) the purpose may be social and affective. (20) What I’m doing with my foot. … Look, listen. … Put them both in … Can you hear it? (32707) (21) Look I want a cup of tea (35204) (22) Look I think I need some new trousers (40809) (23) Look I need my book (40601) (24) look can I have some (39302) Even rudeness and insults can be associated with solidarity and similarity within the social group or network: (25) Look, fuck off Janet, no one wants you. I know, I know. (40602) (26) look shut up (3441) (27) look Jase shut up man (3401) (28) Look face it Jules (3962) (29) Look stop whispering about it (3391) (30) What I’m doing with my foot. … Look, listen . … Put them both in … Can you hear it? (32707) To sum up, look reflects the close bonding between the participants rather than a conversational conflict. It is not surprising that we do not find similar examples in the LLC where the speakers are more likely to regard direct confrontation as 5 See footnote 3. * (*) marks overllap.

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threatening. Look is thus a good example that the same lexical element has both polite and impolite uses depending on who uses it and depending on the situation. Using one of the direct structures in (20) – (30) would suggest aggressive behaviour and power unless the speakers are equals and the context is informal. Moreover attention-getters can express emotion. This is especially true when they combine with vocatives, names or endearments, when they are shouted or prosodically marked in some way. Just as we can express urgency even when this is only metaphorical (we speak as if something is urgent), »we can all express feelings that we do not have, or feelings that it might simply be felicitous to have in a given situation for particular reasons (Caffi, Janney 1994, 326)« (Rîhlemann (2001, 47). Look has affective meanings such as emphasis, intensity, urgency, impatience, softening. As an attention-getting signal with the meaning of urgency look can implicate impatience and exasperation although these meanings would be less apparent in conversations among equals: (31) Look I’ll do that later okay [look , God] [{unclear} no no please {unclear}] but it doesn’t make any sense. You’ve just introduced the topic. [okay] (39301) In (32), look is used with affective meaning (intensity) before a repeated request: (32) Give me the protractor. Look uh listen to me. Give me the protractor. (40601) Look can be a softener implicating friendliness if no disagreement is involved: (33) l\ook P\etey# b> you’ve got is it six dr/awers# b> out of a ch\/est of drawers# b> you’ve got a chest of drawers which is n\ot which is b/ulky# b> you’ve got tw\o m/attresses# b> which are [o @] always a bit *of a* b\ind# (LLC 4.2 1015 – 1020)6

6 See footnote 3.

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Please look is emphatic and urgent: (34) Can I have a tiny sip please. No Please, look I gave you some crisps {unclear}. {nv} scream {/nv} Oh go on let me have some. (33704) Look can be compared with listen. However listen retains more of its meaning as a perceptual verb than look. On the other hand, simply regarding its meaning as perceptual would not explain its functions as an attention-getter or a floorseeking signal. Thus listen like look must be regarded as multifunctional although the literal perceptual meaning is always more or less present. Not surprisingly, listen is less often described as an attention-getter or a pragmatic marker. Brinton (2001, 191) for instance refers to the use of listen as an attentiongetter »as a use which is not recorded in dictionaries of contemporary English«. The attention-getting function is most clear in combinations such as listen here or with an appeal for confirmation (just listen right, okay listen, all right listen, hey listen, ah listen right, no listen right, right listen yeah, now listen yeah, look listen). Listen (like look) was more often repeated as an attention-getting marker. It is therefore possible that it expresses stronger emphasis than look. It was not used in the same contexts as look in the COLTcorpus (or the LLC). Listen was for instance not common in quotative contexts (only a single example in COLT). In the COLTcorpus listen was above all used to draw attention to something in order to consolidate membership in the adolescent group: (35) There’s AIDS, there’s AIDS, right. Listen, listen, listen. There’s AIDS and he’s chasing the bum and the bum’s running (32701) (36) Only done one question. ^2 Hey guys, listen here, let me have, let me have the work that you’ve In the London-Lund Corpus listen was used for urgency which explains the overlap in (37): (37) B> *l\isten#> ^ ((if* you)) feel like a f\ilm tomorrow night M/ike#a> **a what** B> **Saint ^J\ohn’s sch/ool#** A> **((2 to 3 sylls))** (B> ^f\ilm {sh\ow#}# a> what’s happening -

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B> we’re showing Around the World *in \Eighty Days# (LLC 1.7.0 1207 – 1215)7 The example is taken from a conversation between two friends, both of them teachers in their thirties. Speaker B interrupts the conversation in order to introduce something new (the conversation has earlier dealt with different kinds of beers).

3. Attention Markers and Social Function Attention-getters have uses which can be justified by the needs for efficiency and urgency. Look can be used metaphorically »for emphasis on making a rhetorical point« (Brown and Levinson 1978, 101). The need for urgency can however be overridden by the necessity to preserve face. The notion of ›face‹ is central in the theory of politeness developed by Brown and Levinson (1978). (On the importance of ›face‹ compare Goffman (1967).) According to Brown and Levinson the speaker and hearer cooperate to maintain face in interaction. However both the speaker’s and the hearer’s ›face‹ can be threatened by ›face-threatening acts‹. Speakers therefore select strategies that will minimize the threats to the speaker’s and hearer’s (negative or positive) face (›face-redressive strategies‹). Negative face refers to the »want of every ›competent adult member‹ that his actions be unimpeded by others« and threats are redressed by formal politeness strategies (Brown, Levinson 1978, 67). Redressing the speaker’s positive face involves choosing strategies focusing on ›social similarity‹ and in-group membership. These strategies are less obviously polite and in many respects »simply representative of the formal linguistic behaviour between intimates« (Brown, Levinson 1978, 106). Markers which are interruptive of discourse and challenge or contradict a previous speaker can have the function to establish or to maintain solidarity among the members in the adolescent community. The low frequency of attention-getters in this function in the conversations in the LLC suggests that adults do not normally interrupt or take the floor where speaker transition is not licensed. Thus the same behaviour which fulfills important social functions in the adolescent group might be experienced as impolite or aggressive in a conversation between adults. The turn-taking strategies used by adults involve hedging and hesitation rather than interruption and abrupt shifting of the topic. For example, while look and listen were more frequently used by the COLT speakers, the opposite is the case for well, a pragmatic marker frequently used 7 See footnote 3.

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for turn-taking and topic-changing functions. Well marks a conciliatory move rather than a disagreeing one and it does not intrude on the hearer’s privacy (Schiffrin 1987, 118). Attention-getters are markers which the speaker can use intentionally to control conversations and to suggest power and determination. It is interesting to note that speakers with a lower status may not feel comfortable using attention-getting signals. Romero Trillo (1997) has drawn our attention to the difference between ›controlled‹ conversations (interviews with an informant) and free conversations between equals. What happens is that the number of attention-getting devices is lower in the controlled conversation. According to Romero Trillo (1997, 218), this is probably partly because the speakers [in the controlled conversations] do not feel very relaxed, and are not free to draw attention to what they are saying, since they are talking to a person with a higher social status. […] In [the informal conversations among equals], on the other hand, the speakers probably behave in a more normal way and do feel entitled to insist that their addressees be attentive to their words.

To sum up, look and listen have different frequencies and uses in discourse depending on who uses them. When speakers are young and have equal status as in the COLTcorpus they use a lot of attention getters to show that they belong to a social group or network. In the LLC corpus attention getters were less frequent especially in interruptive and floor-seeking functions. The pragmatic markers look, listen or see are multifunctional as a result of their grammaticalization or pragmaticalization from imperatives of perceptual verbs. They have meanings related to discourse-management tasks as well as the social function to establish or maintain intimacy and social similarity. Look as a pragmatic marker is, for instance, used with the meaning of metaphorical urgency, it has the function to introduce a new voice in the dramatized narrative, it is used to interrupt and to mark disagreement in conflictive ›but‹-talk. We have also seen that look and listen can be associated with power in addition to solidarity depending on the type of situation and who the speakers are. This suggests that the markers must refer to sociolinguistic features such as the age (gender and social class) and social role of the speakers as well as to function in different registers.

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References: Andersen, Gisle (2001) Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation. A Relevancetheoretic Approach to the Language of Adolescents, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Brinton, Laurel J. (2001) »From Matrix Clause to Pragmatic Marker. The History of Lookforms,« Journal of Historical Pragmatics 2.2: 179 – 199. Brown, Gillian and Stephen Levinson (1978) »Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena,« in Goody, Esther N. (ed.) Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 56 – 311. Caffi, Claudia and Richard W. Janney (1994) »Towards a Pragmatics of Emotive Communication,« Journal of Pragmatics 22: 325 – 373. Droste, Ga¤tane (1998) »Deux marqueurs discursifs issus de verbes de perception: de ¤couter/ regarder ” ¤coute/regarde,« Cahiers de lexicologie 73: 85 – 106. Fairclough, Norman (2001 [1989]) Language and Power, Harlow: Longman. Goffman, Erving (1967) Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-face Behavior, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. Greenbaum, Sidney and Jan Svartvik (1990) »The London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English,« in Svartvik, Jan (ed.) The London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English. Description and research, Lund: Lund University Press, 11 – 45. Keenan, Elinor Ochs, Bambi B. Schieffelin and Martha Platt (1987) »Questions of Immediate Concern,« in Goody, Esther N. (ed.) Questions and politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 44 – 55. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995) Third Edition, Harlow: Longman. Ochs, Elinor (1989) »Introduction,« Special Issue of Text. An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse 9(1): 1 – 5. Romero Trillo, Jesffls (1997) »Your Attention, Please: Pragmatic Mechanisms to Obtain the Addressee’s Attention,« Journal of Pragmatics 28: 205 – 221. Rîhlemann, Christoph (2007) Conversation in Context. A Corpus-driven Approach, London and New York: Continuum. Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Gail Jefferson (1974) »A Simplest Systematics for Turn-taking in Conversation,« Language 50: 696 – 735. Schiffrin, Deborah (1987) Discourse Markers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stenstrçm, Anna-Brita, Gisle Andersen and Ingrid Kristine Hasund (2002) Trends in Teenage Talk: Corpus Compilation, Analysis and Findings, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Tannen, Deborah (1989) Talking Voices. Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waltereit, Richard (2002) »Imperatives, Interruptions in Conversation, and the Rise of Discourse Markers: A Study of Italian guarda,« Linguistics 40 – 5: 987 – 1010.

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Pavl„na Sˇaldov and Mark¤ta Mal

Discourse-pragmatic Functions of Participial Clauses in Preverbal Position

Considering the fact that due to processing pressure, more complex clause elements generally tend to be positioned after the verb (cf. ›the principle of end weight‹, Quirk et al. 1985, 1362; henceforth CGEL), participial clauses in preverbal position can be considered as marked. The present chapter aims to identify the discourse-pragmatic factors which require the non-final position of participial clauses and which may override the tendency towards final placement.

1. The Types of Participial Clauses The types of participial clauses discussed involve on the one hand postmodifying clauses, restrictive (1) a. and non-restrictive (1) b., and on the other hand adverbial clauses, whether introduced by subordinators (1) c. or not (1) d. (1) a. Articles considering specific aspects of intercontinental collision include those by Burke et al. (1977) […] (J0T, 712) b. Sloth faeces, estimated to contain half the leaf material, are returned to the ground around the trees […] (J18, 91) c. When interviewing Margaret, the therapist found her to be moderately depressed, […] (B30, 608) d. Having asked that she should not be disturbed she had taken the overdose in her room. (B30, 886) The study is stylistically limited to academic written texts. The material was obtained predominantly from the British National Corpus.

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2. Participial Clauses in Initial Position Let us consider the initial position first. Participial adverbial clauses in preverbal position are either integrated in the sentence, functioning as adjuncts, or peripheral to the sentence – performing the functions of disjuncts, subjuncts and conjuncts. Our approach to the classification of adverbials is based on that of Quirk et al. (CGEL, 501 ff); however, it relies more on the semantic characteristics of the non-integrated adverbials than on their formal properties. These participial clauses represent the speaker’s comment on the utterance. In disjuncts the speaker comments on the style, form or content of the utterance. In ex. (2) he presents himself as the ›authority‹ on the utterance (CGEL, 615). Alternatively, the speaker may present the content of the matrix clause as generally valid, including the reader in the sphere of the ›authority‹ (ex. 3). Participial disjuncts are also often used for rewording (ex. 4). The implied ›valency‹ subject is the authorial I / we, and there is typically no coreference between the implied subject of the participial clause and that of the matrix clause it is attached to. The range of participial constructions used as disjuncts appears to be quite narrow: the recurrent predicates include (-ly, e. g. broadly, generally, strictly) speaking, expressed (in this way, formally), put (another way), putting x (more precisely), taken (at face value, literally). (2) Judging by our previous experience, I do not think that the Home Secretary would have refused to renew it thereafter. (ASB, 979) (3) Generally speaking, organisms in warm, shallow seas that either build or are closely associated with reefs have been relatively vulnerable to extinction, […]. (CMA, 556) (4) Putting this more precisely, the proper time taken by light to pass to and fro between two fixed points in spaces oscillates. (H8K, 1732) Participial clauses may also be used to specify the speaker’s point of view, their scope therefore extending over the whole sentence. These clauses may accordingly be classified as viewpoint subjuncts (ex. 5). Concerning the subject nonattachment to the subject of the superordinate clause, the same applies as in disjuncts (and conjuncts, for that matter). Again, a considerable degree of institutionalization of particular predicates in this function can be observed: regarding, having regard, speaking, viewed (in this way). (5) Anatomically speaking, it is an either/or. (CGF, 890)

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Although other forms of adverbials are generally preferred in the text-organising function,1 participial clauses can assume a (near-)conjunct status. The writer’s main concern here is to indicate clearly how the text is organised, and where in this structure the reader is at the moment. It is usually not only the subordinate clause that serves the text-organising function, but rather the sentence as a whole. These clauses border on temporal adjuncts but differ from them in referring primarily to textual rather than temporal localisation. As in other nonintegrated adverbials, the implied agent of the conjunct is typically the authorial I / we. They also resemble disjuncts and subjuncts in referring to the way the content is presented. The text-organizing function is frequently expressed by the following participial constructions: returning to, dealing (firstly) with, concluding, referring (back) to, recalling, switching from […] to, linked with[…]. (6) Dealing firstly with the similarities between this and the student reconstructions, it is noticeable that the preferred opening is vindicated: […].(J89, 144) (7) Before examining the major sociological perspectives on crime, it is useful to refer to theories from outside of sociology, from other academic disciplines. (B17, 187) (8) Secondly, and linked with this point, criminal statistics reflect the intensity of law enforcement itself . (B17, 1096) The relatively high incidence of non-integrated clauses in initial position is due to two factors: first, they function as discourse markers – it is reasonable for the speaker/writer to indicate how the sentence is to be understood or related to the rest of the text as early as possible. Second, the main factor hindering initial position in adjuncts – the anaphoric retrievability of the valency subject – does not pose a problem here: the implied subject is typically the authorial I / we. The author may be considered a part of the ›given‹ information in the whole text – »derivable or recoverable from the context, situation and the common knowledge of the speaker and listener« (Danesˇ 1974, 109). Another factor contributing to the recognition of the participial clause as a conjunct, disjunct or subjunct seems to operate here, viz. the tendency towards lexicalization of certain constructions in the particular function. Initial adjuncts have a Janus-like nature in the construction of the text. They are anaphoric – their subject being recoverable from the preceding context – and at the same time they are tied to the matrix clause by the prevalent identity of the implied subject and that of the matrix clause (following the attachment rule). Considering that »from the point of view of text organization, it is the theme that 1 Cf. Biber et al. 1999, 767 – 770.

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plays an important constructional role« (Danesˇ 1974, 113), the thematic links achieved by the anaphoric reference of the implied subject of the participial clause and its cataphoric ties to the subject of the matrix clause contribute to the cohesion of the text. It is significant that the subject preceded by a participial adjunct typically has anaphoric reference, often being expressed by a personal or demonstrative pronoun or a proper noun (approximately 80 per cent). On the other hand, being the most dynamic element (the diatheme) of the thematic section of the sentence field, participial adjuncts may serve to introduce a new topic in the discourse. In example (9) the pronominal subject it is the least dynamic element (theme proper), referring to the rhematic element of the preceding sentence, but also developing the hypertheme of the paragraph, i. e. the peace camps. Out of the two adverbials, the nonfinite clause carries a higher degree of communicative dynamism (CD). This is not only due to the ›weight‹ of the clause (i. e. its length and complexity as compared with the simple adverb quickly) but also due to the distribution of CD within the subfield of the participial clause. The participial clause is homogeneous with regard to the distribution of CD since the elements carrying the lowest amount of CD (the contextually bound subject, the transition-oriented conjunction) are not expressed in it, and the temporal and modal exponents of the verb (transition proper) are restricted (in comparison with a finite verb predicate). »Through this extreme thematization [i.e. the omission of the thematic elements], the retained elements of an abbreviated clause are brought into relief, even though they do not constitute the rheme of the entire sentence.« (Bcklund 1984, 164) The rheme proper of the participial adjunct clause (women) becomes (a part of) the global paragraph theme (30,000 women, they) in the following sentences. (9) Peace camps were formed around some of the RAF air bases […]. The most famous of these was the first, at Greenham Common. Organized exclusively by women, it quickly became a symbol not only of peace but also of the values of the women’s movement. On 12 December 1982, 30,000 women linked hands to ›Embrace the Base‹. They adorned the perimeter fence with pictures, flowers, and messages of peace. (ASB, 1485)

3. Participial Clauses in Medial Position In medial position, following the subject head noun, the distinction between nonrestrictive postmodifying participles and adverbial clauses is described as ambiguous. It seems possible to move nonrestrictive nonfinite clauses to the initial position without a change in meaning (10). Thus, the nonfinite clause in

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sentence (11) could be regarded as a reduction of a relative clause (11) a., but equally of a causal adverbial clause (11) b., or a temporal one (11) c. (10) a. The substance, discovered almost by accident, has revolutionized medicine. [›which was discovered almost by accident […]‹] b. >Discovered almost by accident, the substance has revolutionized medicine. (CGEL, 1270 – 71)

(11) The man, wearing such dark glasses, obviously could not see clearly. a. >The man, who was wearing […] b. >The man, because he was wearing […] c. >The man, whenever he wore […] (CGEL, 1271) It must be observed, however, that like in the initial position there are different degrees of integration of the nonfinite clauses into the matrix structure: restrictive (defining) postmodifying clauses are, syntactically, a part of the subject NP, and non-restrictive (nondefining, parenthetical) postmodifying clauses were shown to be ambiguous in terms of whether they represent adverbial adjuncts or nonrestrictive postmodifiers. This position may also, though marginally, be occupied by disjuncts. Although restrictive postmodifiers are not of central interest here because their degree of integration into the subject NP does not allow any other position, they are worth mentioning because they share some features with non-restrictive postmodifiers and they also fulfil a clear discourse function. They provide anaphoric links between sentences, as can be observed in the following examples, (12) and (13), in which the participial clauses in bold are in anaphoric relation to the underlined preceding elements. (12) The presence of an antithetic fault on the hanging wall margin can give the impression of a symmetric rift valley if it is exposed and forms an escarpment, even though the overall structure is asymmetric. Further evidence contradicting the traditional symmetric rift valley model comes from observations of their morphology and surface structure. (J0T, 855)

(13) Such regular joint patterns appear to develop when the centres of contraction are evenly spaced. The lines joining these centres represent the directions of greatest tensile stress in the lava flow as it cools, and […]. (J0T, 1198)

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Two observations are relevant at this point. First, the determiners of subject NPs with postmodifying clauses express mainly (96 per cent) non-anaphoric reference, i. e. the subjects are indefinite, as in (12), generic, or cataphoric, as in (13). It is the postmodifier part which links the new sentence and the new nominal entity with the previous context, as is clear from our examples. In contrast to the initial adverbial clauses, where it is the subject of the superordinate clause which is anaphoric, in restrictive postmodifying clauses it is the participial clause (the verb and its complementation) that provides the anaphoric link between the new subject and the previous context. In other than subject functions this tendency is not so strong, i. e. other than subject postmodifiers are not anaphoric to such an extent (the object modifiers are used to introduce new entities / information in the clause, i. e. they do not contain so many anaphoric elements). As far as other clause elements with participial posmodifiers are concerned, the anaphoric function does not seem to be so prominent. The second point worth mentioning is that, in academic writing, subjects containing a participial modifier are much more frequent (40 per cent) than in other registers (10 – 15 per cent, cf. Biber 1999, 623). This specific feature is also reflected in the fact that, as in the initial adverbial position, we can encounter frequently recurring verbs, the prototypical one being associated with, representing 10 per cent of all examples and occurring prevailingly as the modifier of a subject. The reason why this verb is frequent may be sought in its meaning of ›connect in the mind‹, which serves well the defining function of the postmodifiers. It makes it possible to connect noun phrases in a semantically rather unspecified way, i. e. signalling some kind of relationship. The preposition with adds to this flexible combinability. As has been mentioned earlier, nonrestrictive modifiers are said to be indistinguishable from medially placed adjuncts, which can be tested by the possibility of moving them to the initial position, cf. example (10). The following two examples, however, attest that the status of participial clauses following the subject and separated by a comma is not always equivocal, and the adverbial interpretation may not be plausible at all. To be more precise, the mobility test is hard to apply, mainly due to the changes in the interpretation of the initially placed non-finite clause (examples illustrating this point are not drawn from academic prose). Thus, in example (14) the adverbial reading b. brings about a change in meaning, namely, temporal relations; in (15) the postmodifying interpretation with a relative clause is not possible at all. (14) A kindly lorry driver on his way to North Wales, chatting of his own daughter and his home, had dropped her at the roundabout at the top of the Banbury Road at about lunch-time. (A6J, 32) a. >A kindly lorry driver on his way to North Wales, who chatted / was

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chatting of his own daughter and his home, had dropped her at […] b. >Chatting of his own daughter and his home, a kindly lorry driver on his way to North Wales had dropped her at […]

(15) Hazlitt, facing death, was still able to say, proudly, that his last hopes or ideals were also his first ones. (ADA, 663) a. >Hazlitt, when facing death, was still able to say, […] b. >Facing death, Hazlitt, was still able to say, […] Although the positional mobility test may serve well to indicate the degree of integration of the clause into the noun phrase, or to highlight the similarity (both structural and functional) of what are traditionally regarded as two different types of clauses, it represents an oversimplification in the sense that it suggests ›free positional variation‹ of the participial clauses, even in cases when these clauses are regarded from the point of view of the sentence structure, without taking into account the textual or discourse factors that may influence or determine the position of the clause in such sentences. Comparing the NPs of restrictive and nonrestrictive postmodifiers, the most striking feature they share is the prevalent non-anaphoric character of the subject NPs. On the contrary, analyzing the properties of the initially placed participles, it was observed that the main clause subjects were anaphoric, which implies that the covert subject of the participle was present in, or retrievable from, the previous context as well, and the participle was primarily interpreted with respect to that entity, i. e. not with respect to the subject of the matrix sentence, but across its boundaries: the unexpressed subject can be seen as a member of a cohesive chain, with the finite clause subject being anaphoric to all the previous items in that chain. Examples (16) – (18) illustrate subject NPs with indefinite reference, which also represent the subjects of the participial clauses, with (18) indicating most clearly that linearity is an important factor in the interpretation of the subject of the participle. (16) Dickinson and Seely (1979) give a more specific treatment of forearc regions with excellent diagrams of their morphology, structure and evolution. A good coverage of the major processes of orogenesis, containing a number of detailed case studies, can be found in Hsu (1983) and […] (J0T, 702)

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(17) Rather similar definitions, referring to shared norms and abstract patterns of variation rather than to shared speech behaviour, have been given by Dell Hymes (1972) and Michael Halliday (1972). (Hudson 1996, 25)

(18) Though ›poireau‹, the French word closest in sound to the name Christie chose, with its double meanings of ›leek‹ and ›wart‹, appears to have no obvious connection with the detective, the word ›poirier‹, meaning a ›peartree‹, offers a much more fruitful area for investigation. (A0D, 2123) Let us now consider the consequences of the initial placement of such clauses. In (19), the subject of the main clause is a proper noun, which, by nature, is definite. If the participial clause is moved to the initial position, as illustrated in example (19) a., the fact that in the previous context there is no element which can be interpreted as its agent gives rise to pragmatic inferencing in the sense that if the initial position is not required by the cohesive link through the covert subject, there must be some other, this time semantic, relation, usually exemplification, setting a contrast etc. In our example working in Britain is interpreted with respect to the previous context – most likely in the sense that there is a relationship between stationary continents and Britain. This reading is, however, disqualified at the end of the sentence where it is stated that it was rocks from around the world, not just Britain, that provided the data. Although the subject is definite (proper noun), it is mentioned for the first time, i. e. it is not anaphoric. (19) 2.3.2 Palaeomagnetic evidence. During the mid-1950 s, at a time when continental drift was not seriously considered by most earth scientists, new evidence in the form of palaeomagnetic data from rocks again began to bring into question the notion of stationary continents. S.K. Runcorn and his associates, working in Britain, conducted an intensive programme of data collection involving the measurement of remanent magnetism in rocks of various ages from around the world. (J0T, 151) a. > […] new evidence in the form of palaeomagnetic data from rocks again began to bring into question the notion of stationary continents. Working in Britain, S.K. Runcorn and his associates conducted an intensive programme of data collection […] In example (20), the form of the subject, which is explicitly indefinite and ›nonanaphoric‹, rules out the possibility of the initial placement entirely (the beginning of a book). The position can be changed as far as the sentence is con-

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cerned, but the lack of an element in the previous context to which the participle could be linked has pragmatic and semantic consequences. (20) Two European physicists, working in Britain, were able, in 1940, to establish that isotope 235 of uranium could be separated industrially, and during the following year, the Maud Committee reported that an atomic bomb was possible. (ALY, 858) Adjuncts in medial position resemble non-restrictive postmodifying clauses in several respects. First, the subject of the superordinate clause is typically nonanaphoric. In clear contrast to the superordinate clause subjects preceded by initial adjuncts, the subjects followed by an adjunct were never realized by pronouns. Second, moving the participial clause to initial position proved to be problematic. If possible at all, it involved a pragmatic re-interpretation of the semantic relation between the participial clause and the superordinate one. Even if there is an anaphoric link between the subject of the matrix clause and the preceding sentence, it may not be sufficient to guarantee mobility of the participial clause into the initial position where the initial placement could complicate processing, cf. ex. (21) with ›the exposition of a split rheme‹ (Danesˇ 1974, 120). (21) It has recently been proposed that variations in albedo with respect to latitude […] are a result of both the changing distribution of continents and sea-level oscillations. The latter, causing a change in land-sea proportions, is apparently the more important. (CMA, 525) We have already mentioned the compactness of the participial clause and the way this affected the sub-field of the participial clause. However, compactness, i. e. homogeneity in terms of communicative dynamism,2 influences the distribution of the degrees of CD in two ways: one concerns the ›compact‹ element itself, the other the neighbouring elements. As shown by Bcklund (1984, 165), the »compacting effect […] contributes to bringing about distinct rises or falls in CD over the sentence elements«. Participial clauses in medial position, although thematic themselves, frequently assign a certain degree of prominence to the preceding thematic subject. In this way, the subject human beings in (22) is highlighted owing to the following participial clause. The subject would not be emphasised if the adverbial clause were placed in initial position. Bcklund 2 As explained by Firbas, »the phenomenon of compactness can be displayed by any elements that differ comparatively little from each other in CD, but form a section which in its entirety noticeably differs in CD from the elements which precede and follow it« (Firbas 1961, 88).

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points out that participial clauses resemble parentheses in this respect. Both may be used to »throw emphasis on a word immediately preceding it«, and in both »the emphasis is signalled by intonation in speech but is also in most cases signalled by commas in writing« (Bcklund 1984, 184). »There is rarely any need to set off an item that contributes so little to the development of communication« as pronouns do (ibid., 185). This may be another factor explaining why no instance of an adverbial clause inserted in the medial position following a personal pronoun subject occurred in our material, and why the subjects followed by an adverbial clause in medial position are often contextually non-bound. (22) The evolutionary costs in this case are those due to inbreeding, and the cultural outcome is the incest taboo. Two quite distinct arguments are mounted. […] The first argument is the classical one and runs as follows. Human beings, being observant and intelligent, spot the consequences of matings between close relatives and make safety laws about them. (CMA, 983)

4. Summing up – the Anaphoric Subject of the Superordinate Clause Initially placed adjuncts contribute to establishing and maintaining cohesive links in the text in two ways. First, their unexpressed subject is recoverable from the previous context (a rattlesnake in (23)); we can therefore speak about the ›attachment rule‹ operating backwards in the text across sentence boundaries. The unexpressed subject is also typically co-referential with the subject of the matrix clause, viz. the intrasentential application of the ›attachment rule‹ (it in (23)). Second, since the initial participial clause constitutes the diatheme of the field of the sentence, it often serves to introduce a new (or ›derived‹, cf. Danesˇ 1974, 119) topic in discourse (the two rattlesnakes fight). Medial participial clauses are easier to move to the initial position if the preceding subject of the matrix clause has anaphoric reference. However, this is rarely the case and, moreover, the initial placement of the participial clause may necessitate extra processing effort. In the last sentence of (23) the semantic relation of the participial adjunct to the matrix clause is not influenced by position, since it is explicitly indicated by the subordinator (after). (23) Animals avoid using their most powerful weaponry when fighting other members of their species. Rattlesnakes are a clear example. A rattlesnake possesses a powerful poison which it uses against prey and dangerous

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enemies. However, when fighting against another rattlesnake it does not use its poison fangs. Instead the two rattlesnakes fight in a gentlemanly, if energetic, joust in which each tries to push the other to the ground. The loser, after being floored, retreats. (GU8, 1580)

5. Summing up – the Non-anaphoric Subject of the Superordinate Clause: an Adverbial or Postmodifying Participial Clause? We hope to have shown that when the subject of the matrix clause is nonanaphoric, mobility of the medial participial clause is problematic, as in the example of working in Britain […] above ((19) and (20)). Mobility therefore does not seem to be applicable as a criterion of distinguishing between adverbial and postmodifying nonrestrictive clauses. There rather appears to be just one type of medially placed participial clause without a subordinator, which follows a non-anaphoric subject, is intonationally separated from it (as reflected in commas in writing), and which is capable of expressing a range of semantic relations starting from the weakest ones – ›postmodifying‹ (cf. […] today’s speakers, who do not know the origins of generic he […] in (24)) – up to the stronger ›adverbial‹ relations (e. g. reason: […] since they don’t know the origins of generic he). (24) […] it surely becomes impossible to maintain that the workings of gender in English are untouched by sexism. It is true that today’s speakers, not knowing the origins of generic he, may regard it as just a feature of grammar. (CGF, 1050)

6. Conclusion While governed by structure-specific rules every (micro-)structure is also influenced by the requirements of the higher macro-structure which it is a part of. When considering the placement and the positional mobility of participial clauses as a criterion of their syntactic status we have seen that what is a plausible explanation if we limit ourselves to the syntactic structure of the sentence is overridden by the requirements of the hyper-syntactic structure. Likewise, the initial and the medial positions of participial adverbial clauses seem unlikely and hard to justify when considered merely form the point of view of sentence structure – they violate the principle of end-weight and cause processing problems. However, when considered from the point of view of the macro-

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structure of the text, they contribute to the construction and processing of a text: they contribute to establishing and maintaining cohesive ties, they facilitate the introduction of a new topic in the text and may also serve as explicit means of textual organization. The interaction between the micro- and macro-structure is pragmatically conditioned. This involves not only cohesive links but also coherence semantic relations.

Acknowledgements The research reported in this chapter has been supported by the Czech Government grant MSM-0021620825.

References: Bcklund, Ingegrd (1984) Conjunction-Headed Abbreviated Clauses in English, Uppsala, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia 50. Biber, Douglas et al. (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, London: Longman. Danesˇ, Frantisˇek (1974) »Functional Sentence Perspective and the Organization of the Text,« in Danesˇ, Frantisˇek (ed.) Papers on Functional Sentence Perspective, Prague: Academia, 106 – 128. Firbas, Jan (1961) »On the Communicative Value of the Modern English Finite Verb,« Brno Studies in English 3: 79 – 102. Hajicˇov, Eva, Jirˇ„ Havelka and Petr Sgall (2001) »Discourse Semantics and the Salience of Referents,« Kortmann, Bernd (1991) Free Adjuncts and Absolutes in English, London: Routledge. Mal, Mark¤ta (2006) »Some Remarks on Participial Adverbial Clauses from the Point of View of Functional Sentence Perspective,« Prague Studies in English XXIV, Prague: The Karolinum Press, 45 – 58. Povoln, Renata (2000) »Some Notes on Spatial and Temporal Adverbials with Regard to Functional Sentence Perspective,« Brno Studies in English 26: 27 – 55. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, London: Longman. Sgall, Petr, Eva Hajicˇov and Jarmila Panevov (1986) The Meaning of the Sentence in Its Semantic and Pragmatic Aspects, Prague: Academia. Svoboda, Alesˇ (1987) »K vnitrˇn„ strukturˇe adverbiale a adverbia z pohledu aktuln„ho cˇleneˇn„ [On the Internal Structure of the Adverbial and the Adverb from the Point of View of Functional Sentence Perspective],« Acta facultatis Paedagogicae Ostraviensis, D 24: 47 – 55. Svoboda, Alesˇ (1968) »The Hierarchy of Communicative Units and Fields as Illustrated by English Attributive Constructions,« Brno Studies in English 7: 49 – 101. Sˇaldov, Pavl„na (2005) »Presupposition in Postmodifying Participles: the Assumptions

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ˇ ermk, Jan, Alesˇ Kl¤gr, Mark¤ta Mal and Pavl„na Sˇaldov (eds) Patterns. A Made,« in C Festschrift for Libusˇe Dusˇkov, Prague: Charles University in Prague, 231 – 245. Sˇaldov, Pavl„na (2006) »The Distribution of Finite and Participial Postmodifiers in Fiction and Academic Prose,« Prague Studies in English XXIV, Prague: The Karolinum Press, 59 – 73.

Sources: Data cited herein have been extracted from the British National Corpus, version 2 (BNC World) (2001), distributed by Oxford University Computing Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium. URL: http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ Hudson, Richard A. (1996) Sociolinguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Renata P„palov

On the Content Aspect of Textual Themes

1.

Introduction

This chapter deals with the Textual Theme, an entity referred to elsewhere also by other labels, such as Discourse (Level) Theme, Textual Topic, Discourse Topic, Hypertheme, Macrotheme, etc. Moreover, sometimes a hierarchy of Textual Themes is posited, differing in their scopes, including the Global Theme, Paragraph Group Theme, Paragraph Theme, etc. The Textual Theme, however, should be distinguished from its utterance (local) homonym. With Hausenblas (1971) we shall assume that the Textual Theme is superposed to the theme delimited within the frame of reference of the so-called FSP (or else topic focus articulation/information structure).1 In other words, as utterance themes or local topics the author selects elements which are at least to some degree relevant to the Textual Theme. Hence the Textual Theme is seen as an entity which motivates various (utterance) themes (U-themes) directly or at least indirectly.2 It should be noted, however, that Textual Themes have not been studied per se; rather, interest in them developed during recent larger-scale research into cohesion and coherence in paragraphs and paragraph groups (see, P„palov forthcoming). The Textual Theme represents a textual (discourse) function, accorded to entities by the author and interpreted by the recipient. However, the encoded Theme need not be decoded the way it was intended. Naturally, in monological texts, the selection of the Theme is the ultimate responsibility of the author. In dialogical and multilogical texts, however, it tends 1 To distinguish between the two homonymous terms of ›THEME‹, in what follows (outside citations), we shall reserve the capital-preceded ›Themes‹ – i. e., (Textual) Theme and its varieties (e. g., Paragraph Theme, Global Theme) as interpreted on a textual, hierarchically superior level. The non-capitalized ›theme‹, on the other hand, will label its counterpart delimited on the hierarchically inferior FSP level (local topic) and contrasted with the rheme. 2 It should be noted that in this chapter the unit of analysis is the main clause.

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to be negotiated between two or more interlocutors (see, e. g. Downing 2003, Povoln 2005). The Theme is inherent in the text (or text-driven), representing the text’s organizing principle. This, however, does not preclude comparisons of texts on the basis of their Themes. In fact the Theme may be secondarily abstracted from texts and, as a result, texts may be correlated on the basis of similarities in their Themes. The selection of the Textual Theme tends to be conditioned or even constrained by the context. Certain situations, periods, registers, genres, fields, communities, speakers, etc., are all associated with particular groups of Themes. Downing (2003, 114) further observes that cultures and subcultures may have possible sets of topics, some of which are open-ended, while others are conventionally limited by the institutional settings (e. g., law courts, classrooms, etc.). Indeed, in a particular situation, the eligibility of Themes varies from relatively common or prototypical Themes all the way to Themes which would be unusual, or even striking in such circumstances. Frequent Themes allow us even to categorize texts (e. g., publishing houses may catalogue books by their regular Themes, the books are then ›themed‹). Also, inventories of common fiction Themes have been published. For instance, in Daemmrich and Daemmrich (1986) most Themes and Motifs are labelled by nominal units, e. g., ›brother conflict‹, ›ancient ruins‹, ›aggression‹, ›quest‹, ›adventure‹, ›clown‹, ›colour‹, etc., to name at least a few. Since the Theme is deliberately selected by the author given the particular context (situation), the very choice may lend itself to an evaluation. That is why we may assess the Themes as suitable, unsuitable, prestigious, inferior, relevant, irrelevant, etc., (see Peterka 2001, 138). Many authors further maintain that the Theme plays a central role in ensuring coherence in texts. Indeed, the Theme stabilizes and ›grounds‹ the discourse and is relevant to the perception of its coherence (see e. g., Mathesius 1942 [1982], Giora 1985). That is presumably why it is shown to decay from memory more slowly than other processing levels (see e. g., Kintsch et al. 1990, cited in Brown 2006). Furthermore, unnegotiated changes in Theme tend to be identified as disturbance in coherence (see Bublitz, Lenk 1999, 166 – 172). Although there seems to be general agreement as to the significance of the notion in question, there is, however, much disagreement as to what to understand by the concept. To our knowledge, in secondary literature, the Theme has been defined as pragmatic/textual/discourse aboutness, as a single referent, as an FSP function, as a proposition, as a topic sentence, as a cognitive structure, as a summary, as the main idea, as a macro-speech act, as the stock of shared knowledge, etc.

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Hausenblas’s Approach to Textual Theme

One of the most comprehensive accounts of Theme is provided by Hausenblas (1969; and with some minor modifications, 1971). In his definition, the Theme is what is laid down to the fore, to the centre of the ›visual‹ area of reasoning and communicating, but simultaneously, is subjected to further processing in discourse (Hausenblas 1971, 60). Thus, in Hausenblas, the Theme is marked by its duality. On the one hand, it is something foregrounded, since the author delimits what is, as well as what is not, the centre of attention. Simultaneously, however, the Theme is naturally backgrounded, since it serves only as a foundation for communicating the ultimate sense of the text. Hausenblas accords the Theme two distinct functions, namely a perspective and a prospective one. In the delimitation of the former, he was inspired by Mukarˇovsky´ (1932 [2000]). The function consists in ›perspectivizing‹ (hierarchizing) elements of the content structure. This means that some Thematic entities are assigned greater prominence at the expense of others. As a result, we may perceive the main Theme, various subsidiary Themes, Thematic shifts, all the way to individual motifs. In the second function, the prospective one, the Theme operates as a kind of a starting point for subsequent elaboration of the semantic flow. In other words, in this function the Theme embodies a kind of a prospect, plan, which may be fulfilled, specified, modified, abandoned, etc. The laying down of a Theme predisposes a certain range of issues to be selected and raised by the author. Whereas the former perspective function has a hierarchizing effect, the latter, prospective function, represents a kind of disposition to a particular treatment. In other words, it creates certain expectations. Apart from this dual function of Theme, Hausenblas further maintains that there are two aspects of (Textual) THEME – (1) the specific cognitive content of a text, depicting a portion of (fictitious) extralinguistic reality, and (2) a principle of the content build-up of texts. In the latter sense the (Textual) THEME is seen as a means of text structuring. We may assume that the Theme’s content aspect is primarily extralinguistically oriented and only secondarily textual (forming an indispensable unit of texture). Conversely, its constructional/structural aspect appears to be primarily textual and only secondarily reflecting the extralinguistic arrangements (e. g., causal conditioning, changes with time, etc.). Nearly fifty years later, we can only endorse both these dualities, functions and aspects. Despite their being closely interrelated (i. e., one presupposing and conditioning the other), in what follows, we will have space to outline only the content aspect. In this context it appears worthwhile to recall Hausenblas’s words describing the ease with which we tend to posit the Theme as a theoretical

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category, and the difficulties we face when identifying its specific content in individual texts.

3.

Present Treatment

3.0.

Introduction

It should be pointed out that in the present approach we shall put aside such treatments where the Theme is regarded as the main idea, macro-proposition, gist or summary. In a similar vein, we shall disregard such approaches where the Theme is confounded with the potential or intended interpretation. In our view, many of these treatments bring the Theme close to the Global Rheme and appear feasible only in retrospect. In our understanding, the Theme only promises what the text as such should ultimately deliver. Taking Brown and Yule (1983) in particular, Hausenblas (1969; 1971), Danesˇ ˇ mejrkov et al. (1999) as our starting points, we (1994; 1995); and Danesˇ in C suggest a three-layered approach to the Textual Theme. More specifically, we assume that the Theme may be delimited on at least three distinct hierarchized levels which are arranged into a kind of a pyramid. For ease of reference, the whole pyramid, i. e., the three layers put together, will constitute a ›Thematic area‹. In what follows, we shall ascend the pyramid from the bottom.

3.1.

The Broadest Layer of the Theme

In the broadest sense, the Textual Theme involves all the elements inherently taken for granted in the particular speech event. In the framework created by Korˇensky´ et al. (1987), the comprehensive structure of the communicative event involves a number of substructures, namely the socio-psychological (sub)structure (i. e., the social, psycho-physiological and communicative features of the participants, their mutual relationships, their shared knowledge and experience, etc.), the communicative competence structure (the participants’ knowledge of the social and communicative norms, their shared experiential and cognitive pool, and their use of verbal and non-verbal codes), the pragmatic structure (communicative intentions, strategies, goals, etc.), the object structure (participants, present personal and non-personal objects, the communicative medium and channel, records of previous communications, etc.), and, the arguably most decisive Theme-and-content structure (i. e., the discussed personal and non-personal objects, and other content items, including the metacommunicative ones). Moreover, it appears that the content aspect of the Theme

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influences (and, at the same time, is influenced by) the text type and text pattern (these falling in the constructional/structural aspect of the Theme). Hence, the broadest and lowest layer of the Theme, which is simultaneously the most diffuse of all, may be conceived of as corresponding to a whole array of gradually established constituents derived from, and reflecting, the comprehensive structure of the communicative event. However, the aforementioned (sub)structures and constituents of the general communicative framework do not always enjoy equal standing. First and foremost, not all of them need be linguistically manifested in the text. Particularly in some registers, many of them tend to be backgrounded. Frequently, it is not only the elements which are explicitly featured that are significant for the interpretation of the Theme. Just as telling may be the range of elements which are solely presupposed. What is important, however, is that given the openness of texts (van Peer 1989, 277), the recipient can reconstruct the missing links on the basis of his/her activated world knowledge, including the knowledge of the general communicative frame(work). As is pointed out by Downing (2003, 113 – 4), »global topics are not built up exclusively on the basis of textual information. Knowledge on various levels is also involved, including general knowledge in the form of schemata, frames and scripts; sociocultural knowledge and assumptions of the sociocultural context of situation, and finally of the immediate communicative situation, including the goals and needs of the participants, their character, relative status, and the kinds of speech acts they may engage in given the current discourse situation.« In example (1), a number of elements of the broadest layer are encoded as utterance themes (e. g., readers – 1, now – 5, us – 6, 7, 8, etc.). (1) 1 Readers will not be surprised to learn that the purpose of this chapter is to consider the environmental issues outlined in Chapter 1 in the light of the social problems perspective, and to analyse the green movement as a collection of agencies making ›social problem claims‹. 2 This is not done for the sake of bolstering a sociological theory but because this perspective allows us to appreciate how the green movement has come to assume the shape it had at the beginning of the 1990s. 3 A book written even a few years ago (for example the excellent Pye-Smith and Rose 1984) would have presented pressure groups struggling to create public concern about a social problem. 4 Straightforwardly campaigning books would have exhorted their readers to take the issues seriously (Porritt 1984). 5 Now, with green issues high on the political and public agendas, it might be tempting to argue simply that the objective problem has finally forced itself into the public consciousness. 6 The social problems perspective prevent us from falling into that way of rewriting history ; it leads us to ask how it is that envi-

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ronmental issues have come to be seen as an objective social problem. 7 It also encourages us to examine processes internal to the green movement. 8 This perspective leads us to inquire how certain problems have come to the fore within the overall green case, how others have suffered relative neglect and why some organizations have prospered. 9 It also indicates some of the things which can be anticipated from the green movement. (Yearley 1992, 52) Occasionally, to encode some of the elements of the broadest layer of the Theme as (U-)themes and simultaneously not to lose track of the prominent thematic Discourse Subject (DS),3 the authors may decide to employ also what we call submerged thematic progressions. In example (2), taken from a monograph, the author initially foregrounds4 the main DS, namely Jung. This is achieved, among other things, by establishing an identity chain interlacing mostly personal pronouns. In order to attain a greater interactiveness of this text, to disrupt a stylistic stereotype, etc., and simultaneously not to lose sight of the hitherto foregrounded DS, the author encodes as a theme an element of the broadest layer of the Textual Theme (namely we). What is more, by employing the same ele3 »As discourse subject (DS) I treat anything – be it an object, a group or class of them, a quality, state, process, action, circumstance, event, episode, and the like – that the speaker has in mind when applying a nominating (or deictic) unit in the process of text production in order to introduce/present/mention/re-introduce/recall something.« (Danesˇ 1989, 24) 4 ›Foregrounding‹ will be understood here essentially in line with the Prague linguistic tradition, particularly with Mukarˇovsky´ (1932 [2000]). Mukarˇovsky´ (1932 [2000], 226 – 227) argues that the purpose of foregrounding is »to attract the reader’s (listener’s) attention more closely to the subject matter expressed by the foregrounded means of expression.« In his view, »foregrounding is the opposite of automatization, that is, the deautomatization of an act; the more an act is automatized, the less it is consciously executed; the more it is foregrounded, the more conscious does it become«. (In the present study, however, rather than with ›automatization‹, we have contrasted the term with ›backgrounding‹.) Apart from its intentionality and its contrast with the background, Mukarˇovsky´ stresses »the consistency and systematic character of foregrounding« (1932 [2000], 227). Moreover, foregrounding also implies choice, as »a complete foregrounding of all the components is impossible« (227). Furthermore, foregrounding is related to hierarchy. »The component highest in the hierarchy becomes the dominant. All other components, foregrounded or not, as well as their interrelationships, are evaluated from the standpoint of the dominant. The dominant is that component of the work which sets in motion, and gives direction to, the relationships of all other components« (227). The opposition foregrounding / backgrounding (automatization) has gained wide currency in linguistics and has been employed with varying interpretations in diverse contexts. It seems worthwhile to recall also Leech and Short (1981, 48) who distinguish between qualitative and quantitative foregrounding. Among others they maintain that »the quantitative foregrounding […] (adapted by R.P.) of a prominent pattern of choices within the code itself shades into the qualitative foregrounding […] (adapted by R.P) which changes the code itself« (ibid., 139).

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ment in several succeeding utterances (3 – 5), the author establishes an additional identity chain. Interestingly, this decision is matched by syntactic parallelism in utterances 3 – 5. However, the original identity chain pursued initially is not discontinued this way, but rather temporarily submerged (only to resurface again in U-thematic functions later in the text). (2) 1 He took precisely the same approach to the belief systems of the East. 2 Here, too, he attempted to set on one side all metaphysical claims, treating them with agnostic indifference, and concentrating his attention on their psychological nature and significance. 3 We saw earlier that in dealing with the concept of karma, for example, he was careful to avoid any presumption concerning the doctrine of rebirth, treating it instead as an expression of the collective unconscious, a notion for which he claimed nothing but empiricist credentials. 4 We saw too how, in his Commentary on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, he transformed the experiences of the dead soul in its passage from death to rebirth into psychological terms, and prefaced his introduction to The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation with the disclaimer that »Psychology […] . treats all metaphysical claims and assertions as mental phenomena and regards them as statements about the mind and its structure« (Cwll.760). 5 And we saw in his discussion of the I Ching that he took a strictly agnostic attitude to its pronouncements, describing his approach as ›psychological phenomenology‹, and insisting that »nothing ›occult‹« is to be inferred. 6 »My position in these matters is pragmatic.« (Cwll.1000) […].(Clarke 1994, 150)

3.2.

The Central Layer of the Theme

So far we have been discussing the lowest layer of the Theme. The central layer of the visualized pyramid is foregrounded against the background of the broader communicative framework. Simultaneously, since it is constituted within the communicative framework, it is also conditioned and constrained by the latter. In this study we shall conceive of the central layer of the Textual Theme as a complex and hierarchized semantic (cognitive) structure, in monological texts selected by the author. Naturally, like the broadest layer, it may, but need not, be expressed explicitly. In the latter case it stays in the background, being only inferred. Moreover, even when it is encoded explicitly, it is never expressed in its entirety. Rather, from the cognitive structure the author deliberately selects elements to be thematized (encoded as utterance themes). It is usually some of its most conspicuous, prototypical elements that suggest it.

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Conversely, many entities are not manifested by explicit exponents. Nevertheless, since more gets communicated than is virtually worded, even elements which are solely implied are by no means devoid of significance. Since the Theme appears to be the semantic starting point of the communication, it is crucial for its coherence. However, since it may not be expressed entirely, its perception tends to be imperfect. As shown for instance by Trnyikov (2002, 56), coherence is always graded and never complete. Similarly, Bublitz and Lenk (1999, 155) argue that coherence is always only partial, although »participants operate on a generally shared default assumption of coherence« (Bublitz, Lenk 1999, 154), and to achieve a coherent reception of texts, they tend to supply the missing links on the basis of their activation of the relevant portion of world knowledge. That is exactly why the authors’ strategies as to which elements to choose, how and when to encode them as themes are so essential and may induce greater or lower degrees of coherence. It should be noted that the types of the author’s choices may follow from a number of factors, such as the disposition of the Thematic area, the author’s intention, the length of the text, the text-type and genre, the intended recipient, etc., only to name at least some of them. However, the author’s selection of elements from the complex semantic (cognitive) structure (and their thematization) represents simultaneously his/ her strategic decision, which ›perspectives‹ the content in a particular way (perspective function). It betrays his/her particular ›angle of vision‹ in its own right, or the strategic starting point, among others, with regard to the recipient, which may lead to the foregrounding of certain elements at the expense of others (prospective function). Such a strategic decision may be detected both globally, as well as at any moment of dynamically conceived discourse. In this connection, we may recall the well-known »Why that now to me?« by Sacks (cited in Coulthard 1977, 76). Through these choices, the hearer is as if guided throughout the text in a particular way (see also Bublitz, Lenk 1999, 158). Furthermore, the choices (and their sequential arrangement) may be viewed as signals of the author’s cooperativeness. Indeed, if they are felicitous, the reader will be able to recall the relevant cognitive structure. As Bublitz and Lenk (1997, 171) argue, »frames are normally activated by keywords«. It should be noted that the assumption of cooperativeness holds even for monological texts. In this connection we may also recall Linell (1998, 267) who argues that given the collaborative framework, the author of monological texts »produces her topics and arguments with some sensitivity as to how a potential responder, a ›virtual addressee‹, may react«. Despite these choices, the central layer of the Theme is nevertheless rather comprehensive. However, unambiguous delineation of this comprehensive se-

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mantic (cognitive) structure is virtually impossible. Rather, we may conceive of it as a somewhat diffuse and complicated structure, involving a whole range of DSs. From this it also follows that though more specific, and comparably more clearly delineated, this layer of the Theme is not homogeneous at all. Rather, we may assume that there are more essential (prototypical) and less essential (marginal) elements or discourse subjects composing it. The degree of centrality, however, is a property ascribed to various DSs ultimately by the author. In other words, some items of the layer are brought intentionally into greater prominence than others. In examples (3) and (4), numerous elements of the central layer are encoded as U-themes. These, however, are occasionally interspersed with elements of the broadest layer. (3) 1 First The Independent goes tabloid, now the Times follows suit, though both papers are still available in broadsheet form. 2 The Daily Telegraph and the Guardian may not far be behind. 3 What is behind this revolution? 4 There has been a decline in quality newspaper sales over the past couple of years, and publishers have increasingly felt that some sort of shake-up was necessary to revive the market. 5 The Independent was in a particular trough, with sales at less than half the level of the early Nineties, and __ needed to do something dramatic. 6 It has certainly succeeded. 7 Overall sales have gone up, and in some areas the paper’s tabloid version is outselling the broadsheet one. 8 The Times evidently felt it was in danger of missing out. 9 On Wednesday a tabloid edition was introduced in the Greater London area. (Spectator, 29/11/2003)

(4) 1 The supervision of the court and matters arising before and after trial rests with the Clerk to the Justices, who must normally be a solicitor or barrister of at least five years’ standing. 2 The Clerk, or a court clerk, is also available in court to give advice to the justices on a point of law, but he must not influence their decision. 3 The justices decide questions of fact without the assistance of a jury and also __ decide upon the appropriate sentence. 4 The accused person may be represented in court by either a barrister or a solicitor. (Marsh and Soulsby 1987, 30) Further, an affinity should be pointed out between certain text-types or genres on the one hand, and typical configurations of the elements in the thematic (cognitive) structure on the other. For example, in narrative fiction the traditional major and very complex thematic constituents include the characters, the

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plot and the setting. (It is perhaps needless to add that in verbal art, given its second-order semiosis, each thematic constituent becomes a special, secondˇ ervenka 1992, Hasan 1985.) order sign; for further, see, e. g., C Conversely, from the reader’s point of view, these affinities presumably explain the expectation-creating role of Themes. As Calfree and Curley (1984, 174) explain, a skillful reader employs schemata – »mental frameworks acquired through experience and instruction«. Furthermore, of the conventionalized configurations of constituents in the thematic organization, in certain text types/genres some such constituents tend to be prototypically foregrounded, whereas others usually stay in the background. Moreover, foregrounding is a dynamic property, and therefore some constituents may be temporarily foregrounded only to yield to others.

3.3.

The Narrowest Layer of the Theme

We have seen above that the author always selects to encode as U-themes various elements both from the broadest layer of Theme (communicative framework) and from the central layer (cognitive structure). However, there are cases when s/he remains rather focussed in his/her choices, and as a result, this consistency in choices assigns the item selected (and enacted as the main Thematic DS) extra prominence. Therefore, in the narrowest sense the content aspect of the Theme may be identified with some of the most salient elements of the Theme-andcontent structure, or with its dominant entity, e. g., the subject of scrutiny in a scientific monograph or a protagonist in an autobiographical novel (though itself a second-order sign, see above). Such a foregrounded DS, constituting the top layer in the visualized pyramid, is referred to in Brown and Yule (1983, 137) as ›topic entity‹, in van Dijk (1981, 187) as ›major discourse referent‹ or in Tomlin et al. (1997, 89) as ›central referent‹. However, Brown and Yule (1983, 138) argue that when delimiting the topic of an obituary, »one would hardly want to say that ›the topic‹ of an obituary was ›the man‹ referred to by the name at the top of the entry, except in speaking in some kind of shorthand. There are many aspects of ›the man‹, physical characteristics for instance, which would hardly be considered to be appropriate aspects for inclusion in an obituary. The ›topic‹ of an obituary might be more adequately characterized in some such terms as ›an appreciation of the noteworthy events and deeds in the life of X‹.« Still, it appears that the depiction of noteworthy events and deeds in the life of people constitutes some of the defining features of obituaries. Indeed, these do form part of the stock of shared knowledge, may be activated, among other things by the graphical layout and presumably also by the space they are regularly assigned in newspapers, etc. In other words, these

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features are presupposed, expected, as they form part of our culture. In our understanding, then, they do form an integral part of the Theme, though by no means part of its narrowest layer. Against the background of the broader layers, however, there arises as a singular, unique feature, the foregrounded or dominant DS. Therefore, it seems that the above economical depiction of Theme is, after all, possible when numerous parameters of the context of situation are activated to such an extent that the writer may afford such ›shorthand‹. For example, a writer of an obituary discusses the Theme with another specialist in the field. Similarly, when a hot scandal is the subject of discussion, the mere mention of the politician’s name presumably drags behind it a whole network of connotations and activates such a huge amount of world knowledge that the shorthand is not only feasible, but, presumably, also natural. It should be noted, however, that even if a particular discourse subject remains the centre of attention throughout the discourse (especially through rather principled choices), it is always foregrounded against the respective background (i. e., the broadest and the central layers), the dominant entity of which it is taken to represent, whatever the degree of such foregrounding. Even if the background remains only implied, cooperative participants in the communication act will activate the portions of world knowledge structures (frames, schemata, scenarios, etc.), pertaining to the dominant DS and relevant to it. Examples (5) and (6) illustrate paragraphs in which the utterance themes foreground a single DS. Although the narrowest layer is not the only one featured, it is the most dominant one. (5) 1 The mink (bold in the original, R.P.) was widely introduced for fur in 1929 and __ immediately escaped to colonize ›wetlands‹ extensively but irregularly throughout Britain and north-eastern Ireland. 2 It is a serious predator of poultry, game-birds and fisheries and may locally exterminate ducks and waders. 3 Despite all counter-measures it is probably by now permanently established. (Norwich 1991, 32)

(6) 1 The building’s fantastical interiors were born of a marriage between art and commerce; __ crafted to excite the imagination, to invoke the muse and to help spin a few bucks. 2 They surround audiences with sweeping vistas, half-naked gods, goddesses, fauns and satyrs – a pantheon to charm theatregoers into forgiving the old patch of damp or peeling paintwork. (The Times, 5/1/2002)

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Conclusion

Having reached the top layer, we may now recapitulate. To conclude, in the present treatment the content aspect of the Theme involves at least three hierarchized layers arranged to resemble a kind of a pyramid. The lowest and broadest layer, which is simultaneously the most diffuse of all, follows from the overall communicative framework. It corresponds to all the given elements of the speech event. The central layer embraces a number of hierarchized, closely interrelated and regularly co-occurring elements arranged as a cognitive structure, or a content frame. The third, the most restricted one of all, though also potentially available (at least) in (some) texts, embodies some of its most conspicuous or foregrounded elements, or else, its dominant DSs. It seems that all texts apart from athematic ones exhibit at least the first two layers of Theme. Athematic ones appear to display only the broadest layer. The centrality of the narrower (content frame) layer, presumably leads Downing and Locke (1992, 224) to the delimitation of what they call ›Superordinate Topics‹ as cognitive schemata. Martin and Rose (2003, 181) identify them as ›frames of reference‹. The representation of this layer, however, may be backgrounded, whenever the choices from among its constituents are principled to such an extent that they lead to the unequivocal foregrounding of some of the conspicuous or dominant Thematic DS(s). Presumably, the aforementioned tiers, among other things, suggest which elements constituting the complex Theme are typically foregrounded and which are not. It seems that each tier as such is incorporated in the immediately succeeding broader counterpart as its somewhat foregrounded constituent. These layers in the delimitation of the Theme notwithstanding, we tend to think of the Theme as a complex cognitive entity which unites rather than separates, has an integrative force, lends sense to the selection and arrangement of hierarchically lower Themes, or even subsidiary Themes, motivating them. Thus, in this study, the Theme is seen as the most static, unifying element embodying the subject matter treated, or as ›what has been subjected to some description, analysis, scrutiny, narration‹, etc. It should be remarked at this point that some Themes are more predisposed to somewhat narrow rendering (foregrounding the central motif, etc.), whereas others are more prone to connote broader treatments. Despite that, even if largely the same Thematic area is selected on different occasions, texts/discourses still tend to differ, among other things, in what they feature at all, what they choose to presuppose, what they foreground, and on what they establish their continuity. In other words, the same Thematic area may be instantiated and ›perspectived‹ in radically differing ways. At this point it is vital to recall again the concept of openness of texts (van

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Peer). It is impossible and indeed undesirable to identify explicitly all the elements of the Thematic area. In authentic texts, it is usually only some conspicuous features that are foregrounded. In our understanding the outcome of the choices constitute presumably what Firbas (1995) calls the ›thematic layer‹ of the paragraph (text). These considerations have a bearing on build-up patterns in texts, as paragraphs and various higher text units differ considerably among other things in the type of layers of the Theme they feature in their utterance themes. When dealing with paragraphs, paragraph groups or even larger units of texts, it appears significant to explore whether solely elements of a single layer of the Theme are thematized or not, and which layer(s) they come from. If entities of more layers are encoded as utterance themes, it is interesting to investigate which layer is dominant and which is featured only marginally. Just as important is to discover what the mutual proportions of elements drawn from different layers are like, and conversely, which layers are only implied and why. Indeed, paragraphs foregrounding different layers appear to follow different build-up patterns.

Abbreviations and Symbols: DS – Discourse Subject FSP – Functional Sentence Perspective R.P. – Renata P„palov Theme – Textual Theme theme – theme in the theory of FSP U-theme – utterance theme

References: Brown, Gillian and George Yule (1983) Discourse Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Keith (ed.) (2006) Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, vol. 12, 2nd edition, Oxford: Elsevier Ltd. Bublitz, Wolfram, Uta Lenk (1999) »Disturbed Coherence: ›Fill me in‹,« in Bublitz, Wolfram, Uta Lenk, Eija Ventola (eds) Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse: How to Create It and How to Describe It, Selected Papers from the International Workshop on Coherence, Augsburg, 24 – 27 April 1997, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Calfree, Robert C., Robert Curley (1984) »Structures of Prose in the Content Areas,« in Flood, James (ed.) Understanding Reading Comprehension: Cognition, Language, and

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the Structure of Prose, Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association, Inc., 161 – 180. Coulthard, Malcolm (1977) An Introduction to Discourse Analysis, Harlow, Essex: Longman. ˇ ervenka, Miroslav (1992) Vy´znamov vy´stavba literrn„ho d„la [The Meaning Structure C of a Literary Work of Art], Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philologica, Monographia CXVI, Prague: Universita Karlova. ˇ mejrkov, Sveˇtla, Frantisˇek Danesˇ, Jindra Sveˇtl (1999) Jak napsat odborny´ text [How to C Write an Academic Text], Prague: Leda. Daemrich, Horst S., Ingrid Daemrich (1986) Themes & Motifs in Western Literature: A Handbook, Tîbingen: Francke Verlag. Danesˇ, Frantisˇek (1989a.) »›Functional Sentence Perspective‹ and Text Connectedness,« in Conte, Maria-Elisabeth, Jnos S. Petçfi, Emel Sçzer (eds) Text and Discourse Connectedness, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 23 – 31. Danesˇ, Frantisˇek (1989b) »Report of Roger G. van de Velde’s Paper ›Man, Verbal Text, Inferencing, and Coherence‹,« in Heydrich, Wolfgang, Fritz Neubaueer, Jnos S. Petçfi and Emel Sçzer (eds) Connexity and Coherence: Analysis of Text and Discourse, Berlin/ New York: Walter de Gruyter, 228 – 239. Danesˇ, Frantisˇek (1994) »Odstavec jako centrln„ jednotka tematicko-kompozicˇn„ vy´stavby textu (na materile textu˚ vy´kladovy´ch) [Paragraph as a Central Unit of the Thematic and Compositional Build-up of the Text (On the Material of Expository Texts)],« Slovo a slovesnost, 55: 1 – 17. Danesˇ, Frantisˇek (1995) »Paragraph – A Central Unit of the Thematic and Compositional Build-up of Texts,« in Warwik, Brita, Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen, Risto Hiltunen (eds) Organization in Discourse: Proceedings from the Turku Conference, Turku: University of Turku, 29 – 40. Dijk, Teun A. van (1981) Studies in the Pragmatics of Discourse, The Hague: Mouton Publishers. Downing, Angela (2003) »Negotiating Topic Coherence through Talk-in-Action,« in Josef Hladky´ (ed.) Language and Function: To the Memory of Jan Firbas, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 111 – 122. Downing, Angela and Philip Locke (1992) A University Course in English Grammar, New York/London: Prentice Hall. Enkvist, Nils Erik (1991) »Discourse Strategies and Discourse Types,« in Eija Ventola (ed.) Functional and Systemic Linguistics: Approaches and Uses, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 5 – 22. Firbas, Jan (1995) »On the Thematic and the Rhematic Layers of a Text,« in Warvik, Brita, Sanna-Kaisa Tanskannen and Risto Hiltunen (eds) Organization in Discourse: Proceedings from the Turku Conference, Turku: University of Turku, 59 – 72. Giora, Rachel (1985) »What’s a Coherent Text?« in Sçzer, Emel (ed.) Text Connexity, Text Coherence: Aspects, Methods, Results, Mainz: Helmut Buske Verlag Hamburg, 16 – 35. Hajicˇov, Eva (1993) Issues of Sentence Structure and Discourse Patterns: Theoretical and Computational Linguistics, vol. II, Prague: Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University. Hasan, Ruqaiya (1985) Linguistics, Language, and Verbal Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Hausenblas, Karel (1969) »Krtk fflvaha na t¤ma ›t¤ma‹ [Short Reflexion on the Topic of ˇ esk literatura, ˇcasopis pro literrn„ veˇdu 17: 3 – 10. ›the Topic‹],« C Hausenblas, Karel (1971) Vy´stavba jazykovy´ch projevu˚ a styl [The Structure of Utterances and Style], Prague: Karlova Univerzita. Havrnek, Bohuslav (1932 [1964]) »The Functional Differentiation of the Standard Language,« in Garvin, Paul L. (ed.) A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure, and Style, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 3 – 16. Korˇensky´, Jan, Jana Hoffmannov, Alena Jaklov and Olga Mîllerov (1987) Komplexn„ analy´za komunikativn„ho procesu a textu [A Complex Analysis of the Communicative ˇ esk¤ Budeˇjovice: Pedagogick fakulta C ˇ esk¤ Budeˇjovice. Process and the Text], C Kuno, Susumu (2004) »Empathy and Direct Discourse Perspectives,« in Horn, Lawrence R. and Gregory L. Ward (eds) The Handbook of Pragmatics, Malden/Oxford/Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 315 – 343. Linell, Per (1998) Approaching Dialogue: Talk, Interaction and Contexts in Dialogical Perspectives, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Martin, James R. (1992) English Text: System and Structure, Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Martin, James R., Rose, David (2003) Working with Discourse, London/New York: Continuum. ˇ ecˇ a sloh [The Art of Writing Mathesius, Vil¤m (1942 [1982]) »Umeˇn„ pst odstavce: R Paragraphs: Speech and Style],« in Jazyk, kultura a slovesnost, Praha: Odeon, 92 – 146. Misˇsˇ„kov, Gabriela (2005) »Background Knowledge in Interpretation of Discourse,« in Povoln, Renata and Olga Dontcheva-Navrtilov (eds) Discourse and Interaction 1, Brno: Masarykova univerzita v Brneˇ, Pedagogick fakulta, 85 – 97. Mukarˇovsky´, Jan (1932 [1964]) »Standard Language and Poetic Language,« in Garvin, Paul L. (ed.) A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure, and Style, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 17 – 30. Peer, Willie van (1989) »How to Do Things with Texts: Towards a Pragmatic Foundation for the Teaching of Texts,« in Short, Michael H. (ed.) Reading, Analysing and Teaching Literature, London: Longman, 267 – 297. Peterka, Josef (2001) Teorie literatury pro ucˇitele [Literary Theory for Teachers], Praha: Pedagogick fakulta. P„palov, Renata (forthcoming) Thematic Organization of Paragraphs and Higher Text Units, to appear in Prague: UK PEDF. Povoln, Renata (2005) »On the Role of Some Interactive D-items in Different Genres of ˇ ermk, Jan, Alesˇ Kl¤gr, Mark¤ta Mal, Pavl„na Sˇaldov (eds) Spoken English,« in C Patterns: A Festschrift for Libusˇe Dusˇkov, Praha: FFUK/KMF, 169 – 181. Trnyikov, Jarmila (2002) From Text to Texture, Olomouc: Univerzita Palack¤ho v Olomouci. Tomlin, Russell S., Linda Forrest, Ming Ming Pu and Myung Hee Kim (1997) »Discourse Semantics,« in Dijk, Teun A. van (ed.) Discourse Studies. A Multidisciplinary Introduction, vol.1, Discourse as a Structure and Process, London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage, 63 – 111.

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Primary Sources: Clarke, John James (1994) Jung and Eastern Thought: A Dialogue with the Orient, London/ New York: Routledge. Marsh, Stanley B., John Soulsby (1987) Outlines of English Law, 4th edition, London: McGraw-Hill Book Company Ltd. Norwich, John Julius (ed.) (1991) Britain’s Heritage, London: Kingsfisher Books. www.spectator.co.uk accessed on 29/11/2003. www.thetimes.co.uk accessed on 5/1/2002. Yearley, Steven (1991) The Green Case: A Sociology of Environmental Issues, Arguments and Politics, London/New York: Routledge.

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IV Structures and Meaning

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Vladislav Smolka

Why We Read What We Think We Are Reading: On Some Aspects of Resolving Ambiguity

This chapter looks at structurally motivated ambiguities in language and the processes involved in coping with them. It poses questions such as to what extent ambiguities are detected, which factors render one interpretation easier to arrive at than another, and, indeed, whether they always have to be resolved or whether ambiguity in language communication is a reflection of ambiguous reality and therefore something we are prepared to live with. It does not attempt to present a comprehensive overview or classification of the phenomenon, but rather to examine ambiguity in a variety of perspectives, some of them exceeding the limits of linguistics. The treatment of ambiguity as a linguistic phenomenon varies enormously among linguists, as well as among linguistically untrained language users; some argue that ambiguity is essentially ubiquitous, others are convinced that true ambiguity is virtually nonexistent. A look into the Conceptual Index of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Huddleston et al. 2002, 1804) reveals references to ambiguity on as many as 160 pages, i. e. on almost ten per cent of the pages in the whole volume. This alone suggests that ambiguity is a frequent, and therefore potentially also important, phenomenon in English. On the other hand, those who oppose this view claim that the actual instances of communication failing as a result of unresolved ambiguity are extremely rare, which means that in a given context, one of the potential meanings is effectively excluded. Emphasising the frequency of ambiguous structures on the one hand, and the scarcity of unresolved ambiguities on the other, blurs the fact that the two approaches are not necessarily contradictory : instances of potential ambiguity do occur frequently in English, but typically go unnoticed because only one of the interpretations jumps to mind naturally. Ambiguity is rarely intentional on the speaker’s or writer’s part. In other words, it is a »perception« rather than a »production« phenomenon, arising at the perceiver’s side of the communication. This explains why looking for instances of ambiguous structures is so difficult in authentic texts; once a structure is interpreted in a manner which fits

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into the context of the preceding communication, there is no need to re-examine it and look for additional interpretations. As a result, the ambiguous character of a syntactic structure is much more easily identified out of context, when, in order to understand, the interpreter has to supply different hypothetical contexts and test each of them in turn for compatibility with the resulting meaning of the structure. In the rare cases when ambiguity is intentional (as in puns), the desired meaning is perceived against the background of the undesired one, creating a tension without which the pun would lose its humorous effect and would be perceived merely as an instance of inappropriate language use; this means that for a pun to work, the duality of the meaning must be discovered by the interpreter. While the communication problems resulting from ambiguous structures may be negligible, it is easy to see why ambiguity gets a seemingly disproportionate amount of attention among linguists: if language is seen as a system, the fact that one sentence (one superficially identical surface chain of lexical items) may be assigned two different syntactic structures and hence two different semantic interpretations must, in principle, be perceived as a serious systemic shortcoming. This remains true even though phenomena similar to ambiguity are common on levels of the language system lower than that of the sentence, e. g. homonymy of lexical and grammatical elements, or homophonous items on the phonological level. Even though ambiguity is associated with the level of the sentence, i. e. »a field of relations that can be interpreted in more than one way« (Dusˇkov 1999, 199), in practice it is sometimes difficult to distinguish structural ambiguity from lexically motivated alternative interpretations. A case in point is the predicate verb. Alternative interpretations of a sentence containing a nonverbal homonymous lexical element in a given syntactic role (e. g. that of the subject, object, etc.) typically leave the overall syntactic structure of the sentence unaffected as long as the semantics of the element in both meanings are compatible with the syntactic role in question. In such cases the duality of the meaning is motivated lexically. On the other hand, when the homonymy/polysemy is the property of the predicate verb, the different uses of the verb assign different semantic roles to its complements, and when the respective interpretations of the verb differ in valency, they change the overall syntactic structure of the sentence, assigning the complements different syntactic roles. As a result, the boundary between a lexically and syntactically motivated ambiguity brought about by the predicate verb is much less clear-cut, as becomes clear from the following examples.

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(1) Call me John. (Dusˇkov 1988, 511) The nominal complements of the verb call are interpreted either as Oi and Od, or Od and Co, respectively, marking the difference between a di-transitive and complex-transitive predicate verb. It is to be noted that the ambiguity is only possible if both of the complementing elements are formally and semantically compatible with their potential syntactic roles, i. e. that they are nominal and personal in the above example; while the Co may be adjectival, the Od cannot, cf. Don’t call me crazy. More commonly, the syntactic structure of the sentence remains identical in both alternative interpretations, but the semantics of the constituents change. (2) I had a bath. (Huddleston et al. 2002, 291) (3) I had a shave. (ibid.) (4) I had a haircut / wash. (a modification of (3)) The different interpretations of (2) rest on the distinction between the stative and dynamic uses of the verb have (or between fully lexical and delexicalised uses of have), indicating possession of a material object (a bath) in the former case, and a process of bathing in a bath in the latter. Obviously, although the actual choice of the interpretation depends on the context, the latter is inherently more natural and probably also more frequent. Less conspicuously, example (3) manifests a distinction in the semantic role of the subject alone, either as the agent or the initiator, while the object has to be interpreted semantically as a process. The different variants of example (4) demonstrate how the interpretation depends on pragmatic factors: whereas in (3) it is equally possible, at least theoretically, for a person to do the shaving himself or have it done by someone else, a haircut normally suggests the role of the subject as the initiator, while a wash points to that of the agent. It is not impossible in (4) to imagine a reversal of the semantic roles of the subject, but if the less likely interpretation was the intended one, the speaker/writer, facing the risk of being misunderstood, would probably resort to an unambiguous structural option. Interestingly, (4) does not seem to allow an interpretation where the subject is the patient of haircutting (as in the case of a reluctant teenager growing long hair on purpose), whereas in I had my hair cut it is a possible option. The semantic role of the subject is the key to distinguishing the meanings of a potentially ambiguous structure in the following example: (5) She photographs well. (Dusˇkov 1988, 257)

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The animate, personal character of the subject naturally suggests its semantic role as the agent of photographing; since the statement is of a general kind, the syntactic object may be ellipted and the meaning corresponds to She is a good photographer. On the other hand, in a different context the syntactic subject may semantically become the object of photographing, which yields a mediopassive interpretation roughly equivalent to It is easy to photograph her/ She is easy to photograph. The importance of the semantic characteristics of clause constituents for determining the meaning becomes clear from the following, formally analogical example: (6) Flowers photograph well. (a modification of (5)) Owing to its inanimate nature, the subject can only be thought of as the semantic object, and the structure is therefore unambiguous. Consequently, ambiguity does not arise where the semantic character of the constituents does not allow variable interpretation of their semantic roles. Where the clause constituent structure does not change between the two interpretations, the distinction may depend on the semantic type of the copular predication. (7) His first proposal was a joke. (Huddleston et al. 2002, 266) (8) What he gave her was a worthless piece of jewellery. (ibid., 267) In example (7) the subject complement either gives an evaluation of the proposal (i. e., The proposal was laughable) or specifies what the proposal was (The proposal was to use a joke). An analogical difference between the two meanings of (8) may be described as that between a nominal relative clause (or a fused relative in Huddleston’s terminology) and a pseudo-cleft sentence, respectively. Ambiguity often arises from uncertainty concerning the scope of an element understood in a broad sense of the word, i. e. the exact part of sentence within which such an element operates, which it modifies, is related to, etc. Issues of scope are often associated with negation. (9) He didn’t go to New York for two weeks. (ibid., 706) (10) I’m not going because Sue will be there. (ibid., 732)

In one interpretation, the negation has a scope over the main clause predicate, not affecting the adverbial. The meanings may best be demonstrated by shifting the adverbial into the initial position, i. e. before the negation and therefore outside its scope, as in For two weeks he didn’t go to New York. On the other hand,

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the negative scope may extend over the adverbial, leaving the main clause predicate unaffected, as in He DID go to New York, but NOT for two weeks or I AM going there but NOT because Sue will be there. (11) They predicted no rain. (Huddleston et al. 2002, 815) Similarly, in the above example the negation is either of the clausal type or is limited to the object alone. Disambiguation is achieved by expanding the object into a dependent clause: They didn’t predict that there would be any rain or They predicted that there would be no rain. A similar mechanism operates in example (12), where it is unclear whether the adverbial yesterday is part of the matrix or the subordinate clause. For ambiguity to arise, the tense of both the matrix and the subordinate clause must be semantically compatible with the meaning of the adverbial: (12) He told me you wanted it yesterday. (ibid., 781) While moving the adverbial in (12) into the initial position unambiguously assigns it to the matrix clause (Yesterday he told me you wanted it), the focusing adverb only in the following example does not reliably identify the focus in writing when in the not-position. (13) John could only see his wife from the doorway. (Quirk et al. 1985, 605) Any of the clause elements following only may get the focus, and even the subject John is not excluded. The identification is unambiguous when only immediately precedes the focal element. Arguably, the ambiguity is resolved in spoken language by placing the intonation nucleus on the focused element, but in writing the identification of the focus rests on the context and the plausibility of the separate interpretations. Another type of ambiguity may be thought of as a result of ellipsis or of insufficient temporal specification of events. (14) The Examiners’ Meeting finished before the Selection Committee Meeting. (Huddleston et al. 2002, 697) The two respective interpretations are best demonstrated by expanding the event into a clausal form: The Examiners’ Meeting finished before the Selection Committee Meeting finished/began. Within the compound and complex sentence, ambiguity may be a property of the respective syntactic structure; in the absence of an explicit subordinator, the

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last of the clauses in the following example may be understood as coordinated with the matrix clause I know or with the subordinate object clause that he’s cheating. (15) I know (that) he’s cheating and I can’t do anything about it. (Quirk et al. 1985, 1043) In addition, ambiguity may arise in subordinate clauses allowing two interpretations formally classified as separate clause types, e. g. a dependent interrogative object clause and an adverbial clause of condition, or an object and a temporal clause, respectively, as in the following examples. (16) Let me know if you need any help. (Huddleston et al. 2002, 975) (17) Let me know when you need help. (a modification of (16)) Homonymous conjunctions are by no means exceptional and the range of meanings is not necessarily restricted to two: for instance, the conjunction while may be used, in addition to its essential temporal meaning, to convey the meaning of concession and contrast. However, it is to be noted that while some of the interpretations are sharply divided semantically from each other, others are much less so, and are best understood as creating a smooth transition between the two respective categories of clauses. Indeed, certain types of adverbial clauses display a kind of inherent semantic affinity. An example of this kind may be conditional and temporal clauses with future orientation, which essentially manifest a difference in the degree of likelihood of the event presented in the subordinate clause. Unsurprisingly, when as long as is used as either a temporal or conditional conjunction, the semantic difference may be negligible in some contexts. Similarly, the temporal and concessive uses of while seem to be much more clearly outlined than the concessive and contrastive ones, as in the following hypothetical example. (18) I always grumble while my wife never complains about anything. When the sentence is understood as describing characteristic features of the two persons in question, the subordinate clause is purely contrastive. On the other hand, when the idea is that my wife would have every right to complain about my grumbling, but doesn’t do so, the interpretation becomes concessive. When a particular structure is identified as ambiguous, attempts are made by the interpreter to account for the semantic difference in lexical, syntactic or some other linguistic terms. Since the tools used in the description of language necessarily affect the manner in which reality is understood and interpreted,

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forcing the interpreter to employ a particular set of categories and a particular angle of view, paradoxically, a structure may sometimes be assigned different syntactic interpretations even when the semantic difference is tiny. (19) He found a video for the kids to watch. (Huddleston et al. 2002, 1067) (20) He got it for the kids to watch. (ibid., 1067) (21) He got a video for the kids to watch. (ibid., 1067) In Huddleston’s account the infinitive clause in (19) is relative because the verb find does not allow a purposive interpretation, in (20) the pronoun it cannot be postmodified by a relative clause, hence the infinitive clause must be a purpose adjunct, whereas (21) is ambiguous, permitting both interpretations. However, Huddleston is quick to add »that there is little effective difference in meaning between them« (2002, 1068). This line of thought may run even deeper than this: in (19) it is difficult to imagine the event of somebody finding a video that the kids could watch (i. e. relative interpretation) without having in mind the children watching it. In other words, the finding of a video may be interpreted as the result of looking for one, or, at least, as a realisation of coming across one, of the need of one for the kids to watch. This suggests that the concept of purpose associated with a deliberate act is always present, albeit at different levels of implicitness. The subject in (20) may be interpreted semantically either as agent, which suggests deliberateness and hence purpose, or as a recipient, in which case the deliberateness is not necessarily on the part of the subject, but on the implied donor’s part. Interestingly a modification of (21) produces an effect similar to those found in (20). (22) He got the video for the kids to watch.

If the identity of the video is already established, i. e., if the definite article is anaphoric, then the information presented by for the kids to watch cannot be thought of as a criterion of suitability and, consequently, of choice of one rather than another video (which would correspond to the relative interpretation), and the infinitive is therefore understood as an adjunct of purpose. However, in a different context, there may be two videos, one in good condition (i. e. for the kids to watch) and another in poor condition (for the kids just to play with). In such a case the infinitive may be used in its relative sense, but the purpose is still present at an underlying level, and the two formally distinct interpretations merge beyond a point where they can be isolated from each other.

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Complicating matters further is the uncertain status of the preposition for. It can be regarded either as a constituent complementing the matrix clauses predicate (He got the video for the kids) or the subject of the infinitive clause (He got the video that the kids could watch / so that that the kids could watch it), or it could fulfil both functions at the same time (He got the video for the kids which they could watch / so that they could watch it). If the preposition for complements the matrix clause predicate, it will typically be understood as the subject of the infinitive at the same time, yet it is not impossible to imagine that it might be restricted to the function of the postmodification of the noun video, while the subject of the infinitive is identical with that of the matrix clause, i. e. he: He got the video (which had originally been meant for the kids) so that he might watch it. Admittedly, some of these interpretations are less likely than others, but none utterly impossible. Since structures allowing similarly variable interpretations are by no means exceptional in language, a question arises as to how the human mind can cope with this tremendous complexity of potential meanings while processing the language in real time. While there is clearly no simple answer, it is still possible to speculate on factors that may be significant in the process of resolving ambiguity. Human perception and, consequently, the description of reality can never capture it in its entirety. On the one hand, there are physical and physiological limits to what we can see, hear, etc. However, even within those limits, it is still impossible to perceive, store and process all the information that is theoretically available through the senses, since even a seemingly simple relationship of two items of reality may be described in a variety of manners, depending on the angle of observation, the distance, etc. A number of phenomena perceived through the senses are of a continuous rather than discrete character, with smooth transitions from one state of things to another. Perception therefore has to be selective, taking into account only that fraction of information which is recognised as important. Further selection and restriction comes in the process of encoding this information into language: the number of linguistic units is limited, and although it seems that by combining units of different levels the scope of possibilities is enormously expanded (e. g. combining a relatively restricted number of phonemes or graphemes produces vast numbers of units of a higher order, i. e. lexical units, which in turn produce an even larger number of combinations within a limited set of syntactic structures, etc.), it is only possible to make the linguistic representation of reality progressively more and more accurate at the expense of processing ease: the more complex the conceptual content encoded, the longer and more complex the linguistic structure used to encode it. With the complexity of structure increasing past a certain point, the language cannot be processed in real time, losing its essential communicative function. Describing reality by means of language therefore involves segmenting a continuum into a

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limited set of discrete categories, e. g. a continuum of semantic relationships into a limited set of syntactic structures. As the limitations just described have been in operation since language communication began, they have moulded language into its present form and have taught language users how to compensate for incomplete information. One factor is that of predictability. What is communicated can be expected to an extent, because within a particular context some information is more logical than other information. In this respect, semantics has primacy over syntax. It was shown earlier in this chapter that the process of disambiguation necessarily involved consideration of the semantic roles of clause constituents. Given a set of lexical items and a context, language users might often be able to reconstruct the intended meaning even in the absence of syntactic structure because they have expectations about what they are going to read or hear. The same applies to situations when the syntactic structure is imperfect or faulty (as is often the case of non-native speakers). As a result, where the meaning communicated is the one most naturally supplied by logic, the syntactic structure may be ambiguous or may even recede into the background without the danger of the communication failing. Analogical examples may be found at the phonological level among auxiliary words possessing a stressed (strong) and an unstressed (weak) form, respectively : e. g. the weak forms of the and the existential there are phonologically identical and are only distinguished by means of the grammatical context in which they occur. Here, as well as in some other examples, the principle of language economy is in operation, avoiding redundancy of expression as long as it does not make processing the information too difficult or even impossible. The other factor is that a fine discrimination of meaning is often unnecessary, unless the ambiguous phrase or sentence constitutes a crucial point in communication. Underspecification and approximation is the norm in language communication, and it is only when a mismatch between the information content expected and that actually provided is perceived, or a gap in the information supplied is identified, that the linguistic form of the message is reexamined. Unsurprisingly, the structures used in texts where accuracy is important are much more complex than those used in casual conversation, which in turn means that they require more processing effort, both at the producing and the receiving end of the communication. While this ambiguous or indeterminate nature of some language structures may seem unsettling, it may be somewhat comforting to find a possible analogy in other fields of exploration, possibly even those which epitomise accuracy and exactitude. There is a famous experiment in physics, known as the double-slit experiment, in which photons or electrons are shot onto a screen with two slits cut into it and a photographic plate set up behind the screen to record the photons coming through the slits (Greene 2004, 206). If only one slit is open, the

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pattern created on the plate by the photons coming through is, predictably, in the form of a single band. When both slits are open, an interference pattern consisting of a series of concentric bands is created on the plate, as photons coming through the two respective slits interfere with one another. This experiment is used to demonstrate the dual character of photons (or other subatomic entities) as particles and waves at the same time. Astonishingly, the same interference pattern is created even if single photons at a time are shot repeatedly at the screen, suggesting the unimaginable: that a single photon must be coming through both slits simultaneously and interferes with itself. On the other hand, if a device is incorporated into the experiment to determine the slit through which the photon travelled, the interference pattern disappears as if the photon were forced externally to opt for one or the other slit. This demonstration of the idiosyncrasies of quantum physics suggests that processes at the subatomic level are governed by very different laws from those operating at the level of the macro-world, i. e., those we know from our everyday experience and those constituting the basis of »common sense«. Translated into reflections on language ambiguity, the duality of the photon reminds us of the potentially of different meanings encoded within a single language structure. And as the photon is forced by the very act of observation to choose only one of the possible trajectories, language is forced by the process of interpretation to yield only one of the meanings potentially contained in it. It is therefore to be expected that, in spite of not presenting a real communication problem, language ambiguity will remain a popular topic for linguistic study, since it points to the essential processes governing our use of language.

References: Dusˇkov, Libusˇe (1988) Mluvnice soucˇasn¤ anglicˇtiny na pozad„ ˇcesˇtiny [Grammar of Present-day English on the Background of Czech], Prague: Academia. Dusˇkov, Libusˇe (1999) »A Contrastive View of Syntactic Ambiguities,« in Studies in the English Language, Part 2, Prague: Karolinum – Charles University Press, 199 – 208. Greene, Brian (2004) The Fabric of the Cosmos. Space, Time and the Texture of Reality, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Huddleston, Rodney et al. (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quirk, Randolph et al. (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, London: Longman.

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Stanislav Kavka

Whims of Context in the Interpretation of Idiomatic Expressions

In the vein of the functional approach, a few modest thoughts will be offered on the role of context as this shows itself primarily on the interlocutor’s part when decisions are to be made about the proper interpretation of idiomatic expressions. Of course, the role of context on the speaker’s part will also be dealt with. These and other issues are very often taken for granted; they deserve a (psycho-)linguistic analysis, though. The citations in (1) illustrate cases which all English speakers will regard as non-literal in meaning. They are true idiomatic expressions, which do not have any reasonable literal counterparts: (1) white lie; shoot the breeze; cry stinking fish; screamblue murder … On the other hand, the following phrases will undoubtedly be read literally : (2) abominable lie; shoot a bird; eat stinking fish; commit a murder … And, finally, the examples in (3) will have both literal and figurative interpretations: (3) small fish; play with fire; lose one’s marbles … These, evidently ambiguous as they are, cause difficulties. There are far too many in English, and new parallel figurative meanings can appear under certain favourable conditions, as has always been the case throughout history. Etymological studies will shed some light on the process, yet not in all cases. Sometimes the figures by which new, idiomatic meanings come into existence are no longer transparent enough. This is another story, though. At this point we ask the question of whether there is a criterion which presently keeps the literal and the figurative meanings apart; in other words, what is it that informs the interlocutor about one, or the other interpretation?

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One of the crucial concepts that we need to elucidate in order to understand the process of interpretation is ›predictability‹. Following (and paraphrasing) the definition offered by Sˇtekauer (2005), we have in mind the degree of probability that a particular meaning of an expression encountered for the first time by the interlocutor will be interpreted in preference to other possible meanings. The definition must be extended, though –– also because we would like to know more about the very process of comprehending, namely, about that ›degree‹ (as mentioned in the definition) and about that ›preferred‹ meaning. Hence we take predictability as existing on two interconnected levels. On one level the interlocutor analyzes the internal structure of the expression, whose components constitute its total meaning. This computation is quite often difficult to describe, yet in any case it is based on the process of the cumulative association of the semantic roots of the respective components; then, on the receiver’s part the process presupposes decipherment of metonymies, metaphors, even the socalled underlying metaphors involved. At this point one important fact should be mentioned: the so-called Decomposition Hypothesis, which is one of the theories to describe ways of arriving at the proper interpretation of meaning1, assumes that idiomatic expressions are semantically empty and therefore their figurative meanings must be obtained by accessing idiomatic meanings of the components. Hence it follows that what flashes first into the interlocutor’s mind must be the figurative meaning of the whole expression; and only after this figurative interpretation proves inadequate, the literal interpretation will be preferred. Native speakers DO start from a possible, potential figurative reading. Here is what one of our respondents said about the way in which she understood the following sentence: (4) They will call to see if the coast is clear today for the trip. »In the end I prefer the meaning ›the skies are sunny‹, but, actually, my first thought was ›no one was watching them to pursue them‹.« (Here it is fairly easy to guess what finally made her opt in for the literal meaning: it is the word trip, referred to as ›key‹, which »contextually« upset the accumulated figurative interpretation.) In fact, example (4) serves well to comment upon the other level of our extended, broader definition of predictability. There must be a device, in the interlocutor’s mind, which decides on the proper choice. In other words, there is something that finally sets one or the other interpretation apart. Let’s consider the following examples: 1 For certain reasons (explained in Kavka 2003) we prefer this hypothesis to the Lexical Representation Hypothesis and Configuration Hypothesis.

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(5) a. He keeps all kinds of small fish, but the most precious one is a red herring. b. He is just a small fish, but always a master in misleading us with a red herring whenever we try to solve problems. (6) a. The policeman twisted his arm and made him lie on the floor. b. I’ve had enough, thank you. But if you twist my arm I wouldn’t mind having some more salad. Undoubtedly, the meanings of (a) utterances will be read literally, those in (b) figuratively.2 Although we deal with the interlocutor’s position after all, it is worthy of note that here both parties, the speaker and the receiver, will interpret the respective meanings alike. We tend to claim, and quite rightly, that this is owing to the shared context, the factor which is responsible for just one and not the other intention on the speaker’s part and the interpretation on the receiver’s part. Let us have in mind, however, that the construction of meaning and the interpretation of meaning are nothing like a two-way road: thus it may happen that the verbal context does not prove to be as omnipotent a factor as is commonly believed. As pointed out above, interlocutors will normally begin by figurative interpretation, and this will be found to be active if the context is biased for that interpretation – it means: when the context is ›neutral‹, only verbal, and hence rather insufficient. Let us consider a few examples: (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)

Both sisters giggled, shooting the breeze the whole evening. I’m tired; I think I’ll hit the hay. And, in the end, they decided to bury the hatchet. I feel like painting the town red. Can you carry a torch for Mary?

From the speaker’s point of view, however, not all literal readings are as absurd as »shooting the breeze« or »hitting the hay«, or at least as peculiar as »painting the town red« (perhaps by a magician in a fairy-tale)! There indeed are cases of obvious ambiguities, and these must be ironed out in some way in order not to hinder communication. The following example will epitomize the issue: (12) He must have lost his marbles, as he began shouting.

2 Needless to say that the interlocutor must be ignorant of the fact that there is no such species of fish as a ›red herring‹.

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Did he lose those small balls that boys play with, or did he go mad? It is true that the verbal context, in the original view of its concept, will not help much. Namely, it does not help much if we understand it as something that defines the meaning and function of the expression by making the text cohesive through such forms as ellipsis, pronouns, particles, conjunctions, and similar. Luckily enough, this typically occurs not only within the given utterance but also in preceding and following ones. Hence we can stay within the domain of the co-text concept and replace the idiomatic expression with an appropriate simplex, e. g., I feel like celebrating…; He must have gone mad…. It is true, however, that such a solution is not always appropriate, for many a reason, which we will discuss in the other part of the present chapter. Luckily enough, in everyday speech the situation is not as bad as that. Ambiguities that might bring about problems in communication will mostly pass unnoticed since both parties handle the context below the level of consciousness. This sounds optimistic, of course, but here the context-concept is extended. Namely, there are also relevant features of the actual situation in which the utterance is pronounced and these add considerably to the meaning. In fact, these are features that we take into account when dealing with functional styles and which bear upon the issue of text-coherence. Here we speak of context of situation, or co-situation, which represents, at least for some of us, the entire cultural background, including of course the respective communities’ knowledge of the external world. In other words, the concept of context encompasses both verbal and situational context. Then, as a complex phenomenon, it is believed to represent a cline owing to the significance of its co-situational component, overlapping with the co-textual component. What has been maintained is in line with Lyon’s (1983) opinion claiming that the figurative interpretation has its logical grounds not in semantic anomaly but rather in contextual improbability. It must be stressed again that the predictability for the expression to be read figuratively will depend largely on the cosituational component. It is true that sometimes the process of »leveling out« contextual information is what has to be solved first, and it is often timeconsuming, too. Let us illustrate these facts by the following utterance, which reflects two or even three situations. (13) It took me a long time before I got the picture. (i) I am sitting in my friend’s room admiring one of the pictures squeezed on the wall. I know that he was trying to buy the picture from a lady who did not seem to be willing to sell it at first. Now, at my approving sight, he says: »Well, it took me a really long time before I got the picture.« (ii) My friend is telling me about an unexpected appointment with his boss. I

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understand that he was offered a gorgeous career, about which he had not even dreamt before. No wonder he comments upon the experience saying: »It took me long before I got the picture.« It is obvious enough that the interpretation of the expression ›get the picture‹ will be literal in situation (i), and figurative in situation (ii), namely, in the sense ›come to understand‹. Nevertheless, we can imagine yet one more situation, when the expected input comes only after the expression ›get the picture‹ has been uttered. (To a certain extent, allowing for some inaccuracy, we could speak of introducing the rhematic part of the discourse first.) (iii) My friend remains silent, evidently wishing to change the subject. Then, all of a sudden, he says: »Well, it took me really long before I got the picture.« And after a moment’s hesitation he goes on telling a story about buying a picture, as in situation (i), or, alternatively, on his meeting the boss, as in situation (ii). However, the question is what in fact crosses my mind when I hear his first sentence. Of course, I can react in a fairly obliging way, saying »Yes?« in a rising intonation, for instance, but what am I actually thinking of ? Is it anything like ›Which one [i.e. picture]‹, or rather ›What happened that you didn’t understand‹? Retrospective judgements expressed openly by native speakers showed that the very first thought to have crossed their mind on hearing the sentence embedded in situation (iii) was ›He could not understand at first‹. Thus the aforementioned hypothesis is again proved right, namely, predictability guesses begin by figurative reading. Yet there is one important point to be stressed in this »context«. As follows from the preceding discussion, and was mentioned explicitly, too, although the speaker is involved in the same way of processing we could only hardly dare to maintain that the interlocutor’s way is exactly the very reverse path (cf. Aitchison 1996). Suffice it to consider one of the simplest situations: pragmatically speaking, the interlocutor can react in a different way to what the speaker actually intended to say. Thus even though the context may seem to support the figurative reading of the given expression on the interlocutor’s part, what the speaker has in mind, deliberately, is its literal interpretation. Our example of situation (iii) offers a good illustration of this point. Namely, what flashes into my mind first is the meaning, ›my friend experienced something that he could not understand‹; but he has been thinking of the picture now hung on the wall behind us, the one he told me about some time ago. As a matter of fact, my friend has in mind what corresponds to situation (i), and this narrows down the possibilities of interpretation. There are quite a few other issues when context is called upon in order to solve problems, for example: problems of style, or synonymity and interchangeability of idiomatic expressions.

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Here decisions to be made are on the speaker’s part. The role of context will be understood in such a way that its co-textual component seems to prevail when the speaker selects from among synonymous expressions. We have touched upon the possibility of replacing an idiomatic expression with a simplex in order to bias the interpretation; e. g., while ›paint the town red‹ may be ambiguous, ›celebrate‹ is only literal. Of course, this simplex does not require much of the context to be read literally, but we feel that the utterance is lacking in imagination and expressivity. Let us note another example, randomly selected yet more illustrative. One simplex, namely ›get angry‹, is matched by several idiomatic expressions: (14) get angry

blow off steam let off steam

blow off one’s top blow one’s stack

lose one’s cool hit the ceiling bite one’s head off flip one’s lid (etc.)

Reviewing the sets (which are very probably incomplete) we face a handful of issues to be discussed. In our opinion, three of them are worthy of note since they relate to the present topic. (1) Are idiomatic expressions used because they have different meanings from simplexes? (2) Do the substitutions such as ›blow off‹ and ›let off [steam]‹ have any difference in meaning? Or are they just mere variations, alternatives, due to the varieties of English (something like ›trousers‹ and ›pants‹)? And (3): Are all, or at least some of the expressions in (14) equal in meaning, namely, are they synonymous? Gibbs and Nayak (1990, 1991, 1995) presented witty illustrations to show that the proper selection of idiomatic expressions out of those available depended largely on the verbal context, which is to be understood as a choice controlled by root metaphors as these underlie key words of the story. Having been inspired by their illustrations we now dare to offer one of our own: (15) I didn’t mind her driving my Peugeot. But when she returned once on foot saying the car had been left somewhere in a ditch, I ……….. got angry?: got hot under the collar?: hit the ceiling? As all of us will agree, the phrase ›I got angry‹ is too weak in expressivity, and it would probably only be used if the speaker were unable to retrieve from his mental lexicon anything more appropriate, namely, an expression to reflect adequately his state of mind once he learnt the news. Nevertheless, let us imagine that in our speaker’s mental lexicon there are two idiomatic expressions available, e. g., ›get hot under the collar‹, and ›hit the ceiling‹. We could, of course, consider the preference for one or the other expression in terms of the speaker’s personality-type. However, trying to apply idiomaticity concepts, we would like

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to work with an image of »pressure« figuratively (metaphorically) underlying the situation: this pressure can be viewed as being accumulated on the speaker’s part as long as he listens to the story of the accident. Psychologically, through uttering one or the other idiom the speaker tells a lot about his momentary mood, being in the heat of passion; metaphorically, the pressure in the speaker’s mind can only build up piecemeal, or it reaches its maximum and must be released. Obviously, ›hit the ceiling‹ will more likely be used to match the latter situation. The text in (15) is too short, and it does not contain any lexical means to point to the underlying metaphors which are expected to opt in for one or the other idiomatic expression at the end of the story. The story can, of course, be extended and appropriate lexical means used in order to express the significance of the verbal component of context. Let us consider yet another citation, a fairly cohesive text (as a paraphrase of Gibbs and Nayak, ibid.): (16)

I’m always tense when I’m thinking about compounds as idiomatic expressions. It makes me fume when I can’t grasp the idea, and the pressure builds up when I find myself unable to lock it up into proper words. Also I get hot under the collar whenever I come to know that an ingenious thought of mine is not an original one. And when our secretary rings me up reminding me that I forgot to submit an Abstract of my contribution, I BLOW OFF STEAM.

The text abounds in such explicit lexical units that aim at the idiomatic phrase ›I blow off steam‹ as probably the best out of the list (14). The underlined expressions match idiomatically the image of »pressure of steam«. This text, however, is of too creative a character, unlike the more natural text (15); but in spite of that it is illustrative enough from the didactic point of view, showing the role of verbal context in decision-making on the speaker’s part. In place of a conclusion, the following notes can be submitted to a further, more detailed study : We only tried to offer some views on two prototypical cases: one showing the process of biasing interpretation on the interlocutor’s part, and the other illustrating the ways of selecting proper idiomatic expressions on the speaker’s part. If we claim that ambiguities in interpretation, either literal or figurative, are solved owing to »omnipotent« context, then this must be regarded as a fairly complex phenomenon, in which the primary role is played by its co-situational component. This co-part is the one that shows varying degrees of its content, yet in any case it overlaps, more or less, with the co-text component, i. e. verbal component. (The degrees vary according to the stages of language evolution,

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Stanislav Kavka

viewed diachronically, provided we accept the idea suggesting that co-situation is the entire cultural background.) Also worthy of note is the finding that on the receiver’s part the co-situational component may sometimes be time-consuming before an agreement with the speaker is achieved on either literal or figurative interpretation. As a matter of fact, the co-situational component will vary in its degrees more on the interlocutor’s part rather than on the speaker’s part.

References: Aitchison, Jean (1996) The Seeds of Speech: Language Origin and Evolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cacciari, Cristina and Patrizia Tabossi (1988) »The Comprehension of Idioms,« Journal of Memory and Language 27: 668 – 683. Chafe, Wallace L. (1970) »The effect of Idiomatization,« in Meaning and the Structure of Language, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 40 – 50. Fernando, Chitra (1996) Idioms and Idiomaticity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gibbs, R.W. (1980) »Spilling the Beans on Understanding and Memory for Idioms in Conversation,« Memory and Cognition 8,2: 149 – 156. Gibbs, R.W. (1985) »On the Process of Understanding Idioms,« Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 14: 465 – 477. Kavka, Stanislav (2003) A Book on Idiomatology, Zˇilina: EDIS. Kopytko, Roman What is wrong with modern accounts of context in linguistics? http:// www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/ang (7 January 2006). Leech, Geoffrey (1976) Semantics, Penguin Books. Lyons, John (1983) Language, Meaning and Context, Fontana Paperbacks. Lyons, John (1991) Semantics I, II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ortony, Andrew D. et al. (1978) »Interpreting Metaphors and Idioms – Some Effects of Context on Comprehension,« Journal of Verbal Language and Verbal Behavior 17: 465 – 477. Palmer, Frank R. (1993) Semantics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sonomura, Marion Okawa (1996) Idiomaticity in the Basic Writing of American English, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. Sˇtekauer, Pavol (2005) Meaning Predictability in Word-Formation, Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Tabossi, Patrizia and F. Zardon (1993) »The Activation of Idiomatic Meaning in Spoken Language Comprehension,» in Cacciari, Cristina, Patrizia Tabossi (eds) Idioms – Structure, Processing and Interpretation, Hillsdale, New Jersey : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Ullmann, Stephen (1975) »Semantics – An Introduction to the Science of Meaning,« in Readings in Modern English Lexicology, Leningrad: Prosvesceniye. Voort, M.E.C. van de, W. Vonk (1995) »You Don’t Die Immediately When You Kick an Empty Bucket: A processing View on Semantic and Syntactic Characteristic of Idioms,«

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in Everaerts, Martin et al. (eds) Idioms – Structural and Psychological Perspectives, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Publishers, USA.

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ˇ ermk Alesˇ Kl¤gr and Jan C

Neologisms of the ›On-the-pattern-of‹ Type: Analogy as a Word-formation Process? The analogy so pleased him that he often used it in conversation with friends, and his formulation grew increasingly precise and elegant. Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

1.

Starting-points

Analogy has been of profound interest to scholars since classical antiquity. In language study it is a well-known and universally acknowledged factor in shaping language and its development, which has been examined from both a diachronic and synchronic perspective. It is traditionally associated with change in morphonology, morphology, and syntax (where analogy forms the basis of rule reinterpretation). It has been discussed in the pre-structuralist era, as in Junggrammatiker Paul’s Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte (1880, chapter 5), by structuralists – de Saussure devotes two chapters to it in the third part on diachronic linguistics of his Cours (1916), Trnka explores this subject in his paper About Analogy in Structural Linguistics (1936 [1982]) – as well as by generativists (Aronoff, Fudeman, 2004, 87 – 8). An oft-quoted account is provided by Hock (1986 [1991], 167 – 237). He distinguishes two main types of analogy (apart from analogy as a factor in sound change): analogical levelling (›paradigmatic‹ levelling), or the reduction or elimination of morphophonemic alternation within a morphological paradigm, and proportional analogy, in which a regularity is carried over to irregular forms according to the formula A:A’ = B:X. He mentions three areas in which proportional analogy operates, morphology, orthography and word-formation, i. e. creation of neologisms (xeroxing), which is of primary importance to us here. According to Hock, proportional analogy may also combine with morphological reanalysis as in Hamburger where ›from Hamburg‹ was reanalyzed as ›from ham‹, thus making way for analogized forms such as cheeseburger, turkey burger. While individual examples like hamburger > cheeseburger are clearly indicative of analogy at work, it is difficult to get a full idea of analogy at work on the basis of a few scattered instances. The present study makes use of the op-

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portunity provided by electronic dictionaries to search through the etymology section of entry articles. It so happens that if an electronic dictionary such as the COD carefully and consistently enough describes the etymology of the headwords, a relatively large sample of what the compilers apparently consider analogized creations can be gathered. Also there seems to be a certain disparity between this relatively large number of neologisms whose origin is ascribed to analogy and the fact that authors of standard descriptions of contemporary English word-formation, such as Bauer (1983) and Plag (2002), give only a passing mention to its role in vocabulary expansion in English. Therefore we decided to examine the copious electronic dictionary data to see whether it could throw up some new aspects of analogy and show some other patterns beyond the much quoted example of cheeseburger on the model of hamburger.

2.

Data Sources and Reference Sample

The results of a full text search in electronic/online dictionaries for words whose origin involves analogy depend on how systematic the marking is. In the OED Online there are 858 hits for words whose etymologies include the term ›analogy‹. A cursory look shows however that not always does it apply to the actual etymology of the word in question. What is more, the compilers often use other words instead of and alongside the term analogy and so it is necessary to make a careful analysis to identify formulations referring to analogical formations. Inasmuch as the study is of a preliminary nature, it seemed suitable to have a look at dictionaries with a more synchronic orientation than the OED, namely the COD and the RHWUEL. In the case of the COD full text search in the etymology block for the string on the pattern of (in several instances also by analogy with, on (the) analogy with or on the model of) yields close to 350 hits in both the COD9 (1995) and the COD10 (2001). Similarly one finds in the RHWUEL (1996) a total of 194 instances with on the model of etymology and 68 containing by analogy with. Eventually, the choice went to the COD9 list comprised of 344 items (see Appendix) of presumably analogized creations (i. e. regarded as such by the compilers). In the following text we also refer to several other examples taken from other sources. Needless to say that the COD9 list represents only a tentative sample which is neither complete (for instance cheeseburger is missing in both the COD9 and the COD10 since the respective entries do not give etymology) nor reliable as it is bound to include a certain amount of dubious or incongruous cases. This is principally due to the fact that analogy represents, for various

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reasons, a process still open to much debate and so establishing a correct etymology in such cases is not an easy matter.

3.

Sample Analysis

Leaving aside the issue of the status of analogy among word-formation processes (WFPs), we searched the sample for recurrent patterns and ways whereby the etymologies of the sample items could be described. The preliminary picture which emerges is far more varied and complex than we expected. First and foremost, it appears that most instances in the sample can be related to standard WFPs and accordingly fall into several distinct groups of presumably analogical formations (with some additions from elsewhere). The resultant preliminary classification is as follows: 1.

the derivational type: implode < explode, introjection < projection, oldster < youngster, tactile > audile (affixal formations by analogy); 2. the compound type: airhead < bridgehead, mouse potato < couch potato; 3. the (combining-form) neoclassical compound type: democrat < aristocrat, astronaut < aeronaut, cacography < orthography ; 4. the particle compound type: (military) build-down < build-up; hands-on < hands-off; 5. the conversion type (often connected with alternation): ascent < ascend (based on descent < descend); 6. the blending type: sordor < squalor, walkathon < marathon; cf. Stein’s ›layering‹ exemplified by numerati, jazzerati on the pattern of literati; 7. the clipping (abbreviation) type: Nazi < Sozi(alist); 8. the acronym type: SNOBOL < COBOL, H-hour < D-day ; 9. the calque type: lexical: nonsuch < Fr. nonpareil; abreact < Ger. abreagieren; semantic: sack (plunder – from Fr. sac, in the phrase mettre ” sac ›put to sack‹, on the model of Ital. fare il sacco, mettere a sacco, which perhaps originally referred to filling a sack with plunder); 10. the multiword formation type: perpetuum mobile < primum mobile; 11. other types of analogized formations going beyond the above processes: root creation, involving a fanciful element not found elsewhere (million, billion > jillion, zillion); presumably analogical formation of bound morphemes, affixes and combining-forms (-ose, yocto-, zepto-). It was somewhat surprising to find that for practically every type of WFP there is a parallel analogical formation. Surprising only because examples of analogized formations in the literature are chosen selectively and randomly ; at least we have

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not come across any attempt to give their whole range. From the above classification we may conclude that regardless of whether a WFP is considered morphological, highly systematic and rule-governed (derivation, compounding) or highly idiosyncratic and arbitrary (clipping, acronymy) each is accompanied by analogical coinages. To quote Szymanek (2005, 431), »[g]enerally speaking, regardless of the strength and productivity of a particular pattern, a new complex word may be created by analogy«.

3.1.

Some Remarks on the Sample Features

The bulk of our sample comes from two registers – scientific/technical and colloquial/slang, with a marked preponderance of the former. This finding confirms a general tendency in word-formation that the process of conceptual production and exchange is particularly active and brisk in the scientific and professional communities on the one hand and in various interest groups thriving on fashionable trends on the other hand. This onomasiological need is particularly strong in nouns and adjectives which comprise the majority of the sample. From the etymological point of view, the sample contains both native, foreign and hybrid creations. The items of the scientific/technical layer prevail, which accounts for the fact that a large number of the analogized creations is based on Latin and Greek lexical material. In several cases of this type, it is very difficult to decide whether a particular lexical item arose through analogy with another learned word by combination of borrowed segments on the English soil, or whether the word had been borrowed into English as a whole (e. g. sorority formed on the model of fraternity). (The latter possibility would exclude such items from the list of native analogized creations.) The dating of most items in our sample falls between the 17th and 20th centuries, with a few exceptions of undoubted Middle English origin. On the whole, our analysis of the sample has revealed that in most cases analogy indeed played a crucial formative role and that its operation was rather more patterned than unpredictable. From a broader structural and typological perspective, this patterning by analogy in relatively recent English can be seen as part of its striving for a greater degree of transparency (regularity) in the structure of the word, presumably in response to its being inundated by lexical items of specialized meaning and opaque form. The isolated (or secreted) formatives are then free to be used in the lexicogenic process (if they are not a direct result of its operation: yocto-, zepto-).

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A Case Example of Analogical Creation

As a case example we may use the formation anklet, meaning ›an ornament worn around the ankle‹ and first attested in English, according to the OED, as used by P. B. Shelley in 1819. It is described by lexicographers as patterned on bracelet as the model word. The analogy seems then to be of the immediate kind and motivated semantically : both anklet and bracelet refer to items of jewellery. The patterning, however, may be more deeply structured than meets the eye. Though immediate analogies tend to be also non-proportional, what we have here is a case where the relationships are of proportional nature and semantic motivation appears to be paired with a phonetic one. The process begins, as proportional analogy always does, with an isolation of the component parts. They can be decomposed, as is the case here, in an etymologically unorthodox way : the formative –let in the model word is isolated so that one diminutive suffix (-et) is superseded by another (-let). This ahistorical replacement is facilitated by the fact that there exist semantic parallels between Middle English nouns bracel and brace which allow the mistaken joining of the final base consonant to the suffix. Another potent factor to facilitate such morphological reanalysis is phonetic resemblance which often plays havoc with morphology in analogical creations (cf. distinct sound patterns in such formations as aviculture, apiculture, arboriculture, formed on the pattern of agriculture; Mariolatry on the pattern of idolatry). In the meantime, another proportional analogy seems to be at work in the lexical item that feeds the formation of anklet from the other direction: ankle appears to be decomposed into *ank- and –le on the pattern of some such pair as handle and hand (i. e. ankle : X (= ank) = handle : hand).

4.

Analogy – a Distinct Word-formation Process?

Before we attempt to formulate some general impressions from the sample analysis, it will be useful to review the predominant positions on analogy in literature. Authors seem to agree that analogy comes in two forms, as one-off formations modelled on a particular lexeme and cases when a single lexeme provides a pattern for a series of analogical formations. While they usually agree that the former are ›genuine‹ analogical formations, isolated, not accounted for by any kind of rule, unpredictable to some degree, the latter type poses certain problems. Thus Bauer (1983, 96) defines ›genuine‹ analogy as follows: »By an analogical formation will be meant a new formation clearly modelled on one already existing lexeme, and not giving rise to a productive series«, drawing on the distinction between productivity and analogy made by Thomson (1975, 347). At the same time he admits the possibility that »an analogical formation

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will provide the impetus for a series of formations […]« and resolves this awkward fact by claiming that generating a series of words is not the same as generalization: »If instances of word-formation arise by analogy then there is in principle no regularity involved, and each new word is produced without reference to generalizations provided by sets of other words with similar bases or the same affixes: a single existing word can provide a pattern, but there is no generalization« (Bauer 1983, 294). Plag (2002, 37 – 38), on the other hand, recognizes that »[i]n such cases, the dividing line between analogical patterns and word-formation rules is hard to draw. In fact, if we look at rules we could even argue that analogical relations hold for words that are coined on the basis of rules« and he mentions Becker (1990) and Skousen (1995), who »have developed theories that abandon the concept of rule entirely and replace it by the notion of analogy. In other words, it is claimed that there are not morphological rules, but there are analogies across larger or smaller sets of words.« At the same time he provides counterarguments to such a position: »it is unclear how the systematic structural restrictions emerge that are characteristic of derivational processes« and »why certain analogies are often made while others are never made« (ibid.). He concludes by advocating to »stick to the traditional idea of word-formation rules and to the traditional idea of analogy as a local mechanism« or, as he puts it elsewhere (Plag 1999, 20), »analogical formations should be distinguished from instantiations of productive word formation rules«. Still, the dilemma remains and one is inclined to agree with Szymanek (2005, 431) that »it does not seem possible or appropriate to dissociate completely both concepts, i. e. analogy and (high) productivity«.

5.

Analogy as Emerging from the Sample

In general terms, then, analogy found in our sample appears to be linked to meaning and operate in morphologically analyzable word-structures. We found it useful to modify the basic proportional analogy formula A : A’ = B : X for the purposes of word-formation to accommodate the internal structure constituents of A and B. The item A is seen as composed of constituents M1 and M2, and B is composed of constituents M1 and MX (or MX and M2), where M1 stands for ›first or initial morpheme‹ and M2 for ›second or final morpheme‹. The resultant formula is A (M1 M2) = B (M1 MX or MX M2) where MX stands for a morpheme substituting either morpheme M1 or M2 and the formula basically says that on the basis of the internal structure of a par-

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ticular word A a new word B is formed by replacing one of the constituents with a similar morpheme/word-structure. In most cases, analogy tends to be fostered by concomitant functional factors (semantic content). The substituting constituent (free or bound morpheme) appears to be semantically related to the substituted one by various kinds of sense relations such as opposition (explode-implode, patriach-matriarch) or cohyponymy (run-walk in walkathon – marathon). Sometimes, however, the primary motivating impulse appears to be a formal one (most notably, identical phonetic sequence; cf. e. g. the formations in –nik). As might be expected, the sample findings confirm the existence of analogy at two levels, local analogy (›the traditional idea of analogy as a local mechanism‹) and extended analogy providing a pattern for a series of formations. It has to be said that on the most general level all word-formation – whether rule-based (and predictable) or irregular (such as clipping) and one-off coinages – has some kind of analogy as its underlying principle. Analogy is the backbone of creativity, i. e. the native speaker’s ability to extend the language system in a motivated but unpredictable (non-rule governed) way which may or may not subsequently become rule-governed, predictable and productive. Incidentally, it is not without interest that, as Lyons (1969, 36 – 8) says, »whereas the traditional grammarian regarded ›analogy‹ as the principle of regularity in language, the comparative philologist of the late nineteenth century tended to look upon it as one of the main factors which inhibited the ›regular‹ development of language« and concludes that »even the irregularities in language may originate from what were once regularities, however paradoxical this may seem.« The fact that most, if not all, items in our sample can be referred to one type of standard WFP or another suggests that they do not represent a distinct, separate formal (structural) type. By the same token, they were not singled out by the COD authors by accident; there is something special about them which prevents their origin from being described in terms of a WFP. The appearance of all of them is in fact claimed to have been ›inspired‹ or ›motivated‹ by some other specific ›source‹ word, i. e. their formation was triggered by a concrete lexical item on which they are directly patterned. All this applies to both local and extended types of analogy. It leads us to the conclusion that analogy is indeed not a distinct formal word-formation type, but rather a motivated way of exploiting all kinds of word-formation processes, whether unpredictable or rule-governed, to fill some immediate need. Motivation here includes all three types of motivation, phonetic, morphological and semantic, as pointed out by Ullmann (1966). In this sense analogy superimposes different types of word-formation and freely uses them as a vehicle »to say things which had not been said before« (Lyons 1969, 38). A case in point is ankylose which COD9 explicitly describes as a back-for-

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mation from ankylosis, on the pattern of anastomose, or metonym as a backformation from metonymy, on the pattern of synonym, etc. It goes without saying that there is no clear-cut division between the two forms of analogy, local and extended: inevitably it will often be difficult to say whether a neologism came into being solely by exploiting the general pattern of a particular word-formation process (such as compounding) without reference to any previously existing word or whether it was formed directly by analogy with it. Again, this is reminiscent of Plag’s note that »the dividing line between analogical patterns and word-formation rules is hard to draw« (Plag 2002, 37).

6.

Features Characterising Analogical Formations in the Sample

The analogical formations in the sample display certain characteristics that make the presence of analogy notable and accordingly remarked on by the etymologists. They seem to apply particularly to instances of local analogy in which the operation of analogy is signalled by at least four related features, not commonly found with ›regular‹ cases of the respective word-formation processes. The first one is (1) irregularity or unpredictability. The element ank- in anklet mentioned above is a case in point, despite all the structural proportionality that might perhaps be traced underneath. Analogized neologism occurs even when one or the other or both constituents of the complex source word are not regular, or do not appear to be word-forms, affixes or combining forms at all. For instance, although there is a distinct set comprising million, billion, trillion, zillion, no affix/combining form -illion has so far been recognized, and similarly neither mi- in million nor z- in zillion are morphemes either. They are treated as such due to (ad hoc) (2) reanalysis. In the case of million, it is reanalyzed as if composed of –illion affix/combining form; in the case of doublet, it is the part –let which is treated in a likewise manner, etc. Next, there is (3) a distinct semantic link between the trigger or pattern-providing word and the neologism (typically opposition, co-hyponymy, synonymy). This inevitably results in the final feature: neologisms produced ›on the pattern of‹ typically form (4) lexical fields of various types around the pattern word (cf. the field patterned on agriculture containing as many as 19 formations; see Table 1).

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Table 1 Examples of analogy-based lexical fields Trigger word

Lexical field(s)

Agriculture

M1 -fly

aeroculture, apiculture, aquaculture, aquiculture, arboriculture, aviculture, citriculture, floriculture, horticulture, mariculture, olericulture, pisciculture, sericulture, silviculture, stirpiculture, sylviculture, vermiculture, viniculture, viticulture

(habitat/place of origin) house-, bar-, alder-, stone-, stable-, Spanish-, Hessian-; (time of incidence) May-, March-, harvest-; (feeding source) cheese-, dung-, flesh-, fruit-, meat-, flower, vinegar-; (host) deer-, horse-; (colour) butter-, green-, black-,white-; (appearance) crane-, scorpion-, saw-, spider-, soldier-; (distinctive feature) hover-, fire-, lantern-, warble-; (behaviour) gad-, cluster-, dragon-, rob-, etc.

There is one other aspect which distinguishes local analogy from productive processes in the sample. Whereas the latter may not need any trigger word and operate mainly on morphological basis, local analogy yields formations closely linked to the trigger word (and together) within a lexical field by formal and functional similarities. The field is composed of two and more items and most typically based on semantic relationships of antonymy and co-hyponymy. The analogical creation in fact serves to fill the gap(s) in a lexical (sub)field opened up by the trigger word.

7.

Conclusions

Although there is no doubt about the importance of analogy in lexical wordformation – indeed there is a theory recognising three ways in which speakers arrive at a word they are looking for : by rote (searching the mental lexicon for a memorized word), by rule (productive WFPs) and by analogy (Aronoff, Fudeman, 2004) – we are not aware of any in-depth study that would deal explicitly with the operation of analogy in the creation of new words. The sample culled from the etymology blocks of the electronic COD9 displays distinct distributional characteristics, stylistic and temporal, but more importantly the analysis of the sample has shown that the presumed analogical formations recall all the major word-formation processes, and accordingly can be assigned to several groups or types: the derivational type, the compound type, the conversion type, the blending type, etc., with a specific distribution. This close interrelation between analogy and WFPs argues for the view that analogical coinage is not an independent and separate process, but instead a motivated exploitation of all types of word-formation processes, whether rule-

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governed or not. If true, then analogy should come under the heading of motivation, encompassing all three types of motivation. Analogical formations in the sample display certain characteristic features, most of them well-known, that make the presence/operation of analogy notable (hence it is pointed out by the dictionary etymologists). These features include irregularity (unpredictability), reanalysis, close semantic link between the trigger word and the neologism, and lexical field membership. To conclude, the sample analysis has confirmed the erratic nature of analogy which poses a serious methodological problem as analogical formations are likely to form a cline from idiosyncratic one-off creations to relatively openended series. On the other hand, through analogical change as recorded for us by lexicographers we learn something of the morphological segmentation and functional interpretation of the forms at the time when the change was taking place. By assessing its agency, we may hope to contribute a little towards our understanding of mechanisms that allow the native speaker of a language to form new lexical items in a synchronic ›grammar‹.

Acknowledgements The research reported in this chapter has been supported by the Czech Government grant MSM-0021620825.

References: Aronoff, Mark, Kirsten Fudeman (2004) What is Morphology? Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell. Adams, Valerie (1973) An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation, London: Longman. Bauer, Laurie (1983) English Word-formation, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Becker, Thomas (1990) Analogie und morphologische Theorie, Munich: Wilhelm Fink. Hock, Hans Heinrich (1986, 1991) Principles of Historical Linguistics, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ˇ ermk (2006) »Onomasiological Cycle: Up the Down Staircase,« Prague Kl¤gr, Alesˇ, Jan C Studies in English XXIV, Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press, 7 – 18. Lyons, John (1969) Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Paul, Hermann (1880) Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte, Halle (9th ed. Niemeyer: Tîbingen, 1975).

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Plag, Ingo (1999) Morphological Productivity. Structural Constraints in English Derivation, Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Plag, Ingo (2002) Word-Formation in English, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ross, James F. (1982) Portraying Analogy, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Saussure, Ferdinand de (1989, 1996) Kurs obecn¤ lingvistiky, Praha: Odeon, Academia. [Cours de linguistique g¤n¤rale, ed. Bally, Charles and Albert Sechehaye, Paris, Payot, 1916] Skousen, Royal (1995) »Analogy : a Non-rule Alternative to Neural Networks,« Rivista di Linguistica 7.2: 213 – 231. Stein, Gabriele (2000) »Word-Formation Typology : Lexical Units, Processes and Models,« in Reitz, Bernhard and Sigrid Rieuwerts (eds) Anglistentag 1999, Mainz. Proceedings, Trier : Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 91 – 101. Szymanek, Bogdan (2005) »The Latest Trends In English Word-Formation,« in Sˇtekauer, Pavol and Rochelle Lieber (eds) (2005) Handbook of Word-Formation, Dordrecht: Springer, 429 – 448. Sˇtekauer, Pavol, Rochelle Lieber (eds) (2005) Handbook of Word-Formation, Dordrecht: Springer. Thomson, Sandra A. (1975) »On the Issue of Productivity in the Lexicon,« Kritikon Litterarum 4: 332 – 49. Trnka, Bohumil (1936) »O analogii v strukturln„m jazykozpytu,« Slovo a slovesnost 2: 221 – 222. [translated as »About Analogy in Structural Linguistics,« in Fried, Vil¤m (ed.) (1982) Bohumil Trnka, Selected Papers in Structural Linguistics, Mouton, 29 – 31]. ˇ asopis pro modern„ filologii 43: 65 – Trnka, Bohumil (1961) »O morfonologick¤ analogii,« C 73. [translated as »About Morphonological Analogy,« in Fried, Vil¤m (ed.) (1982) Bohumil Trnka, Selected Papers in Structural Linguistics, Mouton, 1982, 263 – 275]. Trnka, Bohumil (1968) »On Analogy,« Zeitschrift fîr Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Komunikationsforschung 21: 345 – 351. Ullmann, Stephen (1966) »Semantic Universals,« in Greenberg, Joseph H. (ed.) Universals of Language, 2nd ed., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Dictionaries: Concise Oxford Dictionary [COD9], 9th Edition, 1995. Concise Oxford Dictionary [COD10], 10th Edition, 2001. Random House Webster’s Unabridged Electronic Dictionary [RHWUEL], Version 2.0, 1996.

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Appendix Reference COD9 sample of presumed analogical formations actinide, adsorb, Africander, airhead, allergy, alumina, aluminium, ambivalence, ambivert, amylopsin, -ance, -ancy, -ane2, anglophone, anklet, ankylose, anticline, antipathetic, apiculture, apolune, apprentice, aquaculture, aquarium, arboriculture, arsine, ascent, astronaut, audile, auto-, average, aviculture, barquentine, barrister, baryta, beachhead, beatnik, beauteous, behaviour, benignant, biathlon, billionaire, bionic, bionomics, biopsy, bookmobile, boundary, bounteous, brazier2, Briticism, bumptious, cacography, Carolingian, casualty, catalyse, catalyst, centennial, -centric, cetane, chaotic, chordate/chordata, citron, clairaudience, cloudscape, cohesion, communitarian, computerate, croncrescence, condolatory, coolant, cosmonaut, covalent, curvilinear, custodian, decelerate, deman, democrat, detoxicate, diarchy, dignitary, dimer, diplomacy, disclosure, discography, discovery, dissimilate, distraint, doomster, duologue, duopoly, duplet, ebony, egocentric, elasstomer, electrolyse, electrostatic, electrovalent, empathy, equalitarian, ergosterol, eventual, eventuate, exposure, extrovert, exurb, exurbia, factual, ferroelectric, finery1, fissiparous, floriculture, flotation, fluorescence, fruitarian, genetic, Glaswegian, goodbye, gradient, grandiloquent, graphicacy, grebo, handicraft, heft, heliport, heptahedron, heptarchy, heptathlon, Hibernicism, horticulture, humidor, hydrofoil, hydropathy, hyperosnic, iconoclasm, idiocy, implode, Indonesian, infix, inlier, interactive, introjection, iodoform, LaserVision, leaderene, levitate, literacy, lithia, locative, -loger, lorikeet, lowlight, maleficent, manufactory, Mariolatry, meristem, Messianic, metonym, metronymic, -metry, midi, midibus, millenium, misandry, monandry, monomial, morning, morpheme, motorcade, multinomial, mycelium, narcolepsy, necropsy, neoprene, neptunium, nom de plume, nonagon, nucleonics, numerate, nylon, nymholepsy, oceanarium, octoroon, oldster, oligopoly, operatic, oracy, Orlon, -ose2, outro, pannikin, parenthetic, pellagra, penultimate, percept, perilune, perpetuum mobile, pessimism, petrifaction, phonon, phosphine, photon, pinocytosis, pisciculture, planetesimal, platitude, pleasurable, plication, -ploid, ploidy, plutonium, poetry, polynomial, potentiate, practice, preferential, privateer, proactive, proclitic, prosenchyma, prothalamium, providential, prudential, pulsar, puritan, pyrolyse, quadruplet, quadruplicity, quantum chromo-dynamics, quintuplet, quintuplicate, radionics, radon, raguly, recessive, reflate, reflation, repine, reportorial, resoluble, resorption, retortion, retractile, retrogress, retrogression, retroject, retrospect, rhombohedron, rudiment, salariat, sateen, saving, -scape, scarify2, Scillonian, sclerenchyma, secrecy, seductive, selvedge, sensor, septfoil, septillion, septuplet, sequential, seriatim, sexfoil, sextillion, sextuple, sextuplet, siderostat, signary, silica, silicon, simpleton, singlet, singleton, skewbald, SNOBOL, sonar, sorority, sousaphone, speciesism, spectacular, spokesman, squirearch, squirearchy, stabile, stator, statuesque, Sten gun, sthenic, straticulate, stratosphere, submissive, suitable, superordinate, surficial, surrebutter, sympathetic, synaesthesia, synoecious, talkie, telegram, tellurium, -teria, terrarium, tetrathlon, titanium, titivate, tog2, to-

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neme, transonic, travelogue, triathlon, trichotomy, tricrotic, trillion, trinomial, trio, triphibious, triplet, triptych, trousers, tyrannosaurus, ultimogeniture, undecagon, underwhelm, unipod, Unix, valediction, vanitory, vespiary, viaduct, vibratile, video, vivisection, volution, walkathon, warfarin, wealth, weeny, width, witticism, wondrous, yocto-, zepto-, zymurgy

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Part 2 Beyond Language Structures

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Martin Prochzka

Introduction

For some structuralists the functionalist approach and the contrastive description of language developed by the Prague School became a point of departure for more general models. A notorious example is Claude L¤vi-Strauss’s application of Jakobson’s and Trubetzkoy’s phonological approaches in the study of the structures of kinship and myths (e. g., L¤vi-Strauss 1963, 27, 31 – 100, 233, 240). Unlike L¤vi-Strauss, who welcomed functionalist structuralism as a general methodology of the humanities, praising its »renovating role« and comparing it to the transformative potential of »nuclear physics« in the »physical sciences« (1963, 31), the contributors to Part 2 of this volume aim to rethink not only the present potentialities, but also the implicit limitations of structuralist approaches. They also discuss the relationship of structuralist methodologies to more recent developments in the theories of structures. Among these, special attention is paid to the notion of »transmission« important for the concept of structure as a dynamic entity and already emerging, as Johannes Fehr shows, in Saussure’s work. Another productive tendency is traced by Ming Quian Ma in Maturana and Varela’s approach to systems as products of interfacing between structure and organization. Still another transformative movement is envisaged in Vaihinger’s and Iser’s concept of fictions as language interfaces mediating not only among incompatible representations or cognitive processes, but also, as Iser’s last lectures and writings demonstrate, between culture and nature. The following chapters proceed from the study of closed, unitary and universalizing concepts of structure to dynamic structures and open systems. In these circumstances, the functionalist approach is substantially modified: it no longer focuses on central paradigms but on the interfaces between systems. Discussing the legacy of Prague Structuralism in literary studies, the contributors to the first section of Part 2 identify numerous functions of language processes and structures which may be described as interfacing. As Lawrence Lipking shows, the thought of translation in the theory of the Prague School (Wellek, Vodicˇka, Levy´, Dolezˇel), leads to the reassessment of the

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synchrony-diachrony opposition. In this process, »untranslatability« engenders the cultural function of translation as »creative transposition,« and the »very existence« of synchronic structures depends »on diachronic circumstantiation.« Commenting on the strengths and deficiencies of Jakobson’s »poetic function,« Ilias Yocaris identifies its weakness as the »want of a trans-disciplinary protocol of analysis acting as an ›interface‹ between the sciences of language and traditional hermeneutics.« One of the major disadvantages of Jakobson’s method is the absence of mediation between interpretation, grasping the dynamic nature of the text, and the totalizing features of functionalist structuralism. As a consequence, Jakobson’s key notion of »poetic function« may be said to validate »a self-reflexive ahistorical conception of literariness« and generate models which cannot represent »complex discursive interactions described by [contemporary] linguists and pragmaticians.« The problems of Jakobson’s structural model are further examined in Shirley Sharon-Zisser’s discussion of the influences of Prague structuralism on Jacques Lacan’s concept of poetry and poetic function. Lacan’s hypothesis of the correspondence between »the unconscious« understood as »a chain of signifiers« and »the effects of substitution and combination of signifiers in synchronic and diachronic dimensions« of discourse, »places the signifier in center stage« and allows one to rethink the unconscious as »the scene of the poetic function.« This points to the Prague notions of dynamic structure (Mukarˇovsky´, Vodicˇka) whose balance or »norm« is constantly disrupted and reinstated. Sharon-Zisser »radically question[s] Jakobson’s […] assertions concerning the immanence of the poetic function.« In poetry, the interface between the conscious and the unconscious becomes »the scene of the poetic function.« The limitations of Ren¤ Wellek’s structuralist concept of literary history based on »intrinsic/generalizable norms« are contrasted by Elizabeth Weiser with Kenneth Burke’s ›performative‹ theory of literary history seen as a process of »interaction among discourses,« rather than as an evolution of systems based on universal and timeless aesthetic norms. The very concept of Burke’s »dramatism,« which Wellek criticized, accounts for the dynamic nature of his system as an interface between individual works as rhetorical »acts« and shifting configurations of linguistic, aesthetic or legal norms. The transformation of the Jakobsonian model of »poetic function« into a dynamic system is discussed by Lawrence K. Stanley. In relation to the metaphoric and metonymic axes of Jakobson’s system, the abstract notion of the »zero phoneme« is interpreted in a Deleuzean way as »something ›missing from its place‹ that gives structure its transformational capacity to generate, out of two other terms or meanings, a third term or meaning of another order.« As Stanley’s analysis implies, Jakobson’s »symbolic-reciprocal relation between the metaphoric and metonymic axes« is transformed into an interface: »we recog-

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nize it as the symbolic-reciprocal relation between the materials of art and the consciousness of the artist.« In the concluding chapter of the first section, James Underhill explores Jirˇ„ Levy´’s structuralist theory of verse. Some of his conclusions imply that the functioning of rhyme resembles that of an interface: »a complex interplay« between the two value systems – acoustic and semantic – generating aesthetic qualities of a poem. As a consequence, rhyme can no longer be understood as a mere formal element. As Underhill points out, this »has fundamental repercussions for translation.« In Levy´’s thought of translation, which is closely linked with his theory of verse, »intonation patterns and syntactic breaks« are not approached as »formal constraints« but as »aspects of a complex meaningful dynamics« of the work of art which must be re-produced (»reshaped«) in the process of translation. This development of Prague structuralism represents an important alternative to the post-WW2 formalist approaches often focused on »fragmentary details.« Moreover, Levy´’s comparative study of rhyme in its relation to specific language phenomena and functions has anticipated recent and contemporary approaches to verse (Gasparov, Meschonnic, Attridge, Wesling). The chapters of the following section (Structuralism Today) reflect on the present position of structuralism as a methodology in the humanities and social sciences. Commenting on »the greatest promise of structuralism,« the expectations that it will close the gap between »the natural sciences and the humanities by offering the new methodology of a hard-core ›science‹« for the latter, Aleida Assmann identifies structuralism’s major contribution as »a systemic approach to time,« tradition (T.S. Eliot) and »social frames of memory« (Maurice Halbwachs). In historical terms, »temporal change is systemically described in terms of a constant replacement of [these] frames […] a new ›perspectivization,‹ a new rewriting.« In Assmann approach, the structuralist approach to time resembles an interface, shifting but also integrating frameworks of memory or paradigms of tradition. Another significant contribution of the Prague School discussed by Assmann is Mukarˇovsky´’s notion of »the unintentional in art« which transcends the functionalist approach and may be said to act as an interface between the phenomenological and semiotic perspectives and between the work of art and its reception. Mukarˇovsky´’s study of the unintentional nature of art highlights the difference between analytical methods of the natural sciences and interpretation used in the humanities, formulated later by Mikhail Bakhtin. In the following chapter, Monica Spiridon assesses the variegated contribution of the previously mentioned thinker. In spite of their great diversity and anti-formalist bias, Bakhtin’s writings can be seen as a remarkable attempt to »interconnect history and ideology with linguistics.« Discussing Bakhtin’s notion of »speech genres,« Spiridon points out »the foundational heterogeneity

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of sense« clashing with the structuralist emphasis on language as a system of norms. In contrast to the structuralist concepts, Bakhtin’s categories (»dialogism,« »heteroglossia,« »carnival,« etc.) »can move freely, transgressing the borders of art and heading towards life.« One may see them as interfaces between heterogeneous discourses and social realities. Although Bakthin never mentions it, some of these notions have affinities with the neo-Kantian concept of the fictive, discussed in the concluding chapter of Part 2. This may be another example of the »contemporary« character of Bakhtin’s thought pointed out by Spiridon. Discussing the concept of structure in Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, Erik Roraback focuses on the importance of contingency and »risk« in rethinking the »baroque« character of »capitalist modernity.« Unlike Bakhtin, emphasizing the »architectonics of answerability,« Luhmann sees modernity as »the structure of contingency that forces selections,« constantly threatened »by eschatological visions of reconciliation, emancipation and truth.« Roraback points out an important quality of Luhmann’s systemic thought of difference, establishing a link between complexity typical of the »hard-core« sciences and theories of meaning in the humanities: »Meaning is […] simply a new and powerful form of coping with complexity under the unavoidable condition of enforced selectivity.« In brief, Luhmann’s systems theory may by read as a productive instance of interfacing the sciences and the humanities and thinking modernity not only as a philosophical category but also as a historical epoch. The limitations of a structuralist concept of history in Vodicˇka’s seminal work The Structure of Development are explored in the following chapter. The main problem of the structuralist approach is that of the closure conceived as »intrinsic balance […] disrupted and regained in the course of time.« In Vodicˇka’s approach, this theoretical understanding of a historical period as »an autonomous field« clashes with the rather empirical notion of national literature based on the »community of the language users.« Therefore the Prague School can grasp history only by means of »pragmatic systemization of heterogeneous material.« Vodicˇka cannot do without a totalizing notion of time but he cannot totalize time intrinsically, in its present moments, split between the possibilities of the development of aesthetic form and pragmatic »tasks« of literary development. The corrective to this approach is seen in the Deleuzean reading of time which sees periodization as »the technique of the reduction and control of the forces of desire« and envisages time as the process of infinite division and subdivision of intervals and a »boundary between language and bodies.« This boundary is understood as an interface: no longer as an original matrix, but, in Derrida’s words, as »structural function.« The last chapter of section two reassesses the structuralist approach to history implied in Jakobson’s work. Responding to Bourdieu’s critique of structuralism

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»as a totalizing program which seeks to control meaning by absorbing the specificity and historicity of human activities and cultural forms within a monolithic grid of binary sign relations and theoretically abstracted cultural norms,« Mark Amsler proposes a different approach: Instead of confronting structuralist models with »economic models of social action,« he re-reads »the Prague School’s theories of the ›dominant‹ and markedness« as »a critique of structuralism from within, one associated with a critical understanding of literacy and textuality,« The relevance of Amsler’s approach is demonstrated both in the theoretical reflection of literacy in post-colonial literatures and its practical application in teaching in a multicultural and multiethnic society. In this respect, Amsler amply demonstrates the productive nature of some key structuralist concepts and approaches, when transposed to different theoretical and cultural contexts where »a text performs and articulates a second ›dominant,‹ a textual other to the social dominant.« Since the main tenets of most chapters in the last section of Part 2 have been outlined at the beginning of this introduction, the following paragraphs concentrate on specific features of individual transformations of the theories of structure, described in the concluding chapters of the book. Pointing out the »controversal, if not contradictory« nature of Saussure’s notion of »transmission,« Johannes Fehr’s close reading of Saussure’s manuscripts attempts to mediate between the transmission’s accidental character and its general function as »a tension inherent in Saussure’s thinking on language.« It can be said that the notion of transmission functions as an interface between two heterogeneous and (at least for Saussure and many other structuralists) incompatible systems of language and society. A similar theme of »the joint enterprise of signs and deeds« characterizes the approach of Giuseppe Martella. As a »constitutive part« of human existence, language is significant not only in the metaphysical sense, but also in the »sheer scientific sense, according to which all living things feed on an energy-information diet allowing them to regulate their life and thus to survive.« Conscious of the reciprocal nature of »life and understanding,« Martella proposes to see language »as an open system« of no longer neutral, but »biased or assymetrical differences […] stemming from significant and motivated gestures.« Using the phenomenology of perception and examples of digitalization of social and cultural memory, Martella outlines the complexity of language from a simple bodily gesture (»index«) and its function (deixis) to a hypertextual »link«, where word-processing programs and other technological devices may be said to function as interfaces. As Ming-Qian Ma argues in the following chapter, »de-synonymizing system and structure« amounts to »an important conceptual shift in rethinking language as a system.« While the system’s organization is »operationally closed to

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itself« materializing its optimum state, the system’s structure is »functionally open to optimizing from its environment.« These characteristics roughly correspond – at a more general level, applicable in the sciences as well as in the humanities – to the Prague School notions of structure, its norm and »concretizations.« What substantially modifies this approach is the perspectivism implied both in Maturana/Varella and Henri Atlan’s approaches. Especially the latter’s term »chunking« as a »change in perspective at the structural level of integration that signifies informational complexity at the level of the organization« (further elaborated by Michel Serres) and may be said to transform the notion of structure with respect to non-linear concepts of time (e. g., Deleuze’s »Aion«) discussed in the chapter on structuralism and history. The concluding chapter deals with the transformative potential of »fictions« in science and art, discussed towards the end of the nineteenth century by the German Neo-Kantian philosopher Hans Vaihinger and more recently in the cultural anthropology of Wolfgang Iser. Apart from the functioning of the fictive as »an interface among language, human consciousness and the surrounding world« the chapter discusses its relation to theories of play, starting with Schiller, and its impact on the understanding of the nature-culture relationship. As an interface, the As-If »does not embody a foundational principle.« It is a function that »precedes the structure« and consequently marks a new stage in the development of its theories.

References: L¤vi-Strauss, Claude (1963), Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Schoepf, New York: Basic Books.

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I Legacies of Prague Structuralism and Literary Studies

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Lawrence Lipking

Lost in Translation: The Prague School and the World of Literature

In 1956, when Erich Auerbach reviewed the first two volumes of Ren¤ Wellek’s A History of Modern Criticism, 1750 – 1950, he argued that no theory could produce general laws of literature or arrive at a unified view of the critical field. Critics had always responded to texts and issues of their moment, not to any continuing conversation. In that respect a coherent history of literary criticism was strictly impossible; whoever attempted it could only record a succession of individual critics (Auerbach 1956). This argument articulates a deep divide between the old philology, historicist and relativistic in its assumptions, and newer efforts to frame comprehensive theoretical principles.1 Yet it also reflects a tension in Wellek’s own work as well as in the legacy of the Prague School. Theory of Literature (1949), in the chapters that Wellek wrote, had proposed that the concept of »structure« could »open a way to the proper analysis of a work of literature,« and it defined that opening in terms already well established by Jan Mukarˇovsky´ and other Czech Structuralists: »›Structure‹ is a concept including both content and form so far as they are organized for aesthetic purposes. The work of art is, then, considered as a whole system of signs, or structure of signs, serving a specific aesthetic purpose« (Wellek, Warren 1949, 141). Potentially analyses of such systems of signs might be »proper« in any time and place. But as a literary historian Wellek did not follow his own theory. The History of Modern Criticism (1955 – 92), as it expanded from four projected volumes into eight, gradually fell into a piecemeal, eclectic account of national schools and the critics who led them. In practice, apparently, Auerbach had won; no system of signs could account for the unpredictable weavings of individual critics. Perhaps the difference between Auerbach and Wellek had always been more apparent than real, however. The two scholars shared interests in philology and literary history as well as literary criticism, and they agreed more often than they differed. Nor did Auerbach’s skepticism about comprehensive theories prevent 1 Wellek (1991) takes issue with Auerbach’s »secular religion of historicism« in Volume 7 of the History.

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him from floating theories of his own. Indeed, his own former teacher, the great E. R. Curtius, accused him of encasing living works of art in dead terms such as »realism.« In the words of R. P. Blackmur, »Curtius is, relative to Auerbach, a deep anarch of the actual. Every blow he struck at Auerbach was meant to break down the formulas whereby we see how unlike things are like« (Fitzgerald 1985, 39). From this point of view, not only the history of criticism but every sort of history must fight a never-ending, always-defensive battle against the triumphant formulas that grind particular things into a paste of lumpy generalizations. Wellek liked to generalize too. Yet as a literary historian and historicist—»I still believe fundamentally in historicism,« he told me in a letter not long before he died—he remained engrossed by irreducible, particular details. Few passages in the History of Modern Criticism are more revealing than his appreciation of Albert Thibaudet, whose expression of the essence of historicism »recognizes all the fantastic variety of the world and enjoys it in its conflicts and contradictions. [. . .] It is a view of literature and the world that is still immensely fruitful for its understanding, however much it may run counter to the fanaticisms, the limited preoccupations and the possibly profounder metaphysics of our time« (Wellek 1992, 60). Clearly Wellek is speaking about himself no less than about Thibaudet, and voices his own dismay at what he regards as the ahistorical metaphysics of current fashions in theory. Thus a work that began with synchronic ambitions concludes with diachronic resignation. The History comes crashing to a halt in 1950; the champion of theory retreats to a former age when historians and critics had joined in an effort to understand and value literature. The tension between theory and history in Wellek’s work might be traced back to the very beginning of the Prague School. Most of the founders, including Vil¤m Mathesius, Bohumil Trnka, Roman Jakobson, and Jan Mukarˇovsky´, had been trained as philologists, of course, and the ambiguity of the word »philology,« which can stand either for literary scholarship in general or more specifically for the study of language, applies as well to the enterprise that they pursued. The Prague School itself, considered as a wide-ranging investigation of structures and systems of thought, might be viewed as an offshoot of a group with a much tighter focus on language, the Prague Linguistic Circle. An enthusiastic antihistoricism fueled the sense of discovery and opportunity that Mathesius and Trnka brought to the Circle. »When I began with my own work as a linguist,« Mathesius later wrote, »the diachronic approach was in such preponderance that it was destroying the possibilities of further development. I thus stood up against it and worked systematically in a synchronic manner« (Toman 1995, 86). In the long run this stark opposition did not hold. The systems of signs that constituted language might also serve, some linguists recognized, as a portal to

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the larger systems of signs, also embedded in language, that constituted history and culture. That insight probably represents the most lasting achievement of the Prague School. As Jurij Striedter persuasively argues, Czech Structuralism departed from Russian Formalism by defining the work of art as a sign in an aesthetic function; in this way it made room for the study of changing codes that frequently modify the reception of each system of signs and thus provide grounds for the evolution and evaluation of literature (Striedter 1989, 83 – 119). Perhaps no other theoretical school has ever worked harder to account for historical shifts in aesthetics. In present-day terms, one might claim that scholars such as Mukarˇovsky´ and Felix Vodicˇka tried to connect the DNA of works of art—their elemental systems of signs—with their Darwinian evolution through time—the transformations of artistic species. This was an immensely ambitious project, a confluence of synchronic and diachronic codes. If it did not succeed, that may be the fault of history ; the political climate after the 1930 s did not encourage Czech scholars to take an interest in aesthetic values and functions. But tensions inherent in the project also kept reappearing. The antihistoricism that energized the early strivings of the Prague Linguistic Circle still lingered, like an unwelcome ghost, in the later historical research of the Prague School. A similar tension permeates one of the main concerns of the Circle, its views on translation. The founders could hardly ignore the problems and hazards of translation, for practical as well as theoretical reasons. First of all, the diverse backgrounds of members, with Russian, Ukranian, German, and French as well as Czech strains, were difficult to reconcile with the ideal that Jindrˇich Toman calls »the magic of a common language.« What language was spoken, in fact, at the first meetings of the Circle? That is not entirely clear. Probably German led a polyglot conversation, with many troublesome accents (one running joke was that Jakobson spoke 25 languages, all of them Russian). If one motive of these discussions was to provide linguistics with an international if not global perspective, moreover, freeing language from any narrow national parole, another motive was a declaration of Czech independence. Czech literary scholars inherited the patriotic challenge of defending the singularity of their national literature against absorption by other languages and cultures, a challenge made still more urgent by the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This was the moment to assert—or invent—a tradition, a political identity that selected items from the past and shaped something new. The cosmopolitanism of the Prague Circle promised that Czech philology could shed the provincialism of second-hand scholarship and lead the way to a world-class reform of linguistics. Translation served as a model: by analyzing what happened to works in other languages when translated into Czech, critics demonstrated the systematic in-

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tegrity of each version. Poetics, like Jancˇek’s operas, confirmed the inimitable and irreplaceable power of the native language. At the same time, however, those who spoke that language occupied only a small part of the world, and they needed to communicate with other languages and literatures. During the 1930 s a massive campaign to make world literature available to Czech readers, and Czech literature known to the world, resulted in increasingly sophisticated theories and practices of translation. Many associates of the Prague Circle were mobilized in that campaign. Jakobson’s interest in particular problems of translation played a major role, he later acknowledged, in stimulating his important studies of linguistics and poetics. Here structuralism triumphed. In their analyses of poems, Mukarˇovsky´ and Jakobson defined more clearly than ever before the precise phonological and grammatical patterns that are unique to each language and always escape translation. It was not that Jakobson subscribed to what he called »the dogma of untranslatability,« later popularized by Benjamin Whorf. Since »all cognitive experience and its classification is conveyable in any existing language,« the translator, given enough space and time, could always render literally »the entire conceptual information contained in the original.« But poetry turned grammar and sound into significant units that carried semantic import. Grammatical gender, for instance, which personified inanimate nouns as male or female, could predispose »the mythological attitudes of a speech community.« As Jakobson points out, »My Sister Life, the title of a book of poems by Boris Pasternak, is quite natural in Russian, where ›life‹ is feminine (zhizn’), but was enough to reduce to despair the Czech poet Josef Hora in his attempt to translate these poems, since in Czech this noun is masculine (zˇivot).« Hence »poetry by definition is untranslatable,« and »only creative transposition is possible« (Jakobson 1987, 428). From one point of view—the poor translator’s—this conclusion might well induce despair. Yet from another it might bring about a sense of tantalizing possibilities. For the linguist, the investigation of what gets left out of poetic translations offered new insights into the nature of language, in which »irrational« elements also helped frame the total system of signs. Moreover, in an odd way poetry defended the nation, because it preserved that part of Czech ancestry that could not be touched or usurped or carried away. »The standard literary language,« acccording to Bohuslav Havrnek, »is the vehicle and the mediator of culture and civilization; it is an indicator of independent national existence« (Mukarˇovsky´ 1977, 7). When that sentence was published, in 1940, the independent national existence of Czechoslovakia could hardly be taken for granted. But poetry, like an underground demotic resistance movement, kept the national spirit alive. No other language could do what it did. Untranslatability, in this respect, was exactly what a patriotic writer should strive for. That point had already been made in the eighteenth century by Samuel Johnson. By defying

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translation, Johnson argued, poets guard language against the blight of foreign jargons and pidgins, which in his day threatened, through »the license of translatours,« to »reduce us to babble a dialect of France« (these days, of course, the whole globe babbles American English). Johnson’s great Dictionary of the English Language (1755) was written for poets; like a seed bank, it saves and nurtures a pristine stock of native words (Lipking 1998, 131 – 34). In a similar way, the Prague Linguistic Circle identified the stock of grammatical and phonological structures that made Czech poetry immune to transplantation. Yet Czech poets, scholars, and critics, as well as the nation itself, could not survive without perpetual interchange and affiliations with the rest of the world. Small nations need friends, a larger community that expands their horizons and keeps their existence in mind. In building such alliances, translation is vital. Furthermore, an adequate theory of translation would have to go beyond attention to the import of phonology and grammar. Mukarˇovsky´ and Jakobson had already emphasized the wider historical contexts that affect the aesthetic functions of language. The next generation of the Prague School, especially Vodicˇka and Jirˇ„ Levy´, developed original views of translation based on reception theory (Vodicˇka) and »transduction« (Levy´) (Dolezˇel 1988). Each of these theories focuses on the process by which a literary »message« is contingent not only on the text that transmits it but on the way it is received. In this dynamic process, as in a Heraclitean river, no text is ever the same each time it is read; it is altered by concrete conditions of history, changing assumptions and epistemes, shifts in the meanings of words, or the perspective of the individual reader. Translation, therefore, represents the dynamics of transmission in their purest form. If poetic texts are untranslatable, that is because they share the common fate of texts: the gulf between the sender and receiver who collaborate in realizing them. But for that very reason translations expose and clarify the double nature of texts, synchronic structures whose very existence depends on diachronic circumstantiation. Since each translation is always already not only a »message« but also one example of its reception, analysis must necessarily look both ways, toward what has been lost in the transmission and what has been added. In this way the critic avoids the error of regarding either the text or its history as a closed system; changing contexts alter systems from one age to another, if not from moment to moment. When Vodicˇka wrote his classic Beginnings of Newer Czech Belletristic Prose (1948), therefore, he began not with an »original« text but with a translation, Josef Jungmann’s version (1805) of Chateaubriand’s Atala (1801). Any conventional critic might note the difference between Chateaubriand’s famously gorgeous French prose and its relatively restrained Czech offspring; and with painstaking care Vodicˇka parses the dissimilar sentence structures of the two texts. But that is not his point. Rather, he wants to show how the specific social

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and historical contexts of that moment—the »Czech national rebirth«—induced or forced Jungmann to invent a new sort of prose, transposing Chateaubriand’s mystical Romanticism into a belletristic prose-poetry that would at once appeal to unmystical, unromantic Czech readers and prepare them to accept hitherto unperceived possibilities in their language, an aesthetic dimension from which a future national literature might be created (Striedter 1989, 131 – 38). In this virtuoso analysis, Vodicˇka combines minute linguistic discriminations with a remarkably ambitious theory and history of reception. The movement from French to Czech prose provides a clear view of the way that texts vary according to the contexts that frame them. But at the same time it suggests that a study of comparative translations, not only as texts but as contexts, might serve to illuminate the historical changes in literature as a whole, conceived as a series of tasks or projects rather than as detached pieces of language. Potentially such a study might grow into an overarching structure or system of systems that found a place for every language and assigned individual texts a position in space and time within the larger world of literature. This narrative deserves a grand climax. If there were any justice, the literary history of the Prague School would culminate with The World of Literature (1967), a secondary-school textbook written by a collective of scholars under Vodicˇka’s direction. Here structuralist theory marries the broadest possible outline of the history of literature, in terms that even young students can understand. On another shore, Wellek’s Theory of Literature, which ends with chapters on literary history and literary education, had envisioned just such a project, a dream now realized by Vodicˇka. But curb your enthusiasm. Although the first volume of the textbook was printed, the authorities, on the eve of Prague Spring, were not ready to approve The World of Literature; unavailable to the public, it vanished down a hole. Has anyone here seen a copy?2 Not me. As a matter of fact, after I mentioned the text in a lecture in 1984, Wellek denied that it had ever existed, though he may have relented when I told him that Jurij Striedter had seen it, read it, and described it to me. In any event the project was not completed, nor is anything remotely comparable—a sophisticated and concise introduction to world literature, informed equally by history and theory— available today. Perhaps the very idea of such a text now seems impossible, like a perfect translation. One might believe in global literature, a congeries of disconnected and unrelated languages, traditions, and cultures, united, if at all, only by a stubborn refusal to be assimilated into the empire of major powers and 2 When I asked this question during my lecture at the conference in Prague, Martin Prochzka informed me that he had studied the text in a course soon after its publication. This contradicts Striedter’s statement that the book »was never released for school use« (Striedter 1989, 288).

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airport bookracks. But a coherent world of literature, a system of systems or total order of words (in Northrop Frye’s phrase)—that dream seems beyond us. If despite the best efforts of the Prague School the theory and history of literature have yet to be synthesized, however, maybe the tension between them remains productive. Like Auerbach and Wellek, the best philologists grapple with theory, just as history forces itself on theorists. Nor has the final word on the Prague School and the world of literature yet been written. Consider one last parallel with what might be found, as well as lost, in translation. I have already referred to the despair of the Czech translator of Pasternak’s poems.Yet that impossibility proved full of possibilities—amazingly creative. In a letter to Jakobson, Pasternak declared that the Czech translation »played an essential role in his work. His own writings, having become dead letters, already weighed down upon him, but when he read them in a new version that at the same time was similar in language, he derived inspiration for renewal of his work« (Jakobson, Pomorska 1983, 145). Dead letters can unexpectedly come back to life, and translations can refresh as well as distort. When and if »The World of Literature« is eventually published, it will not resemble Vodicˇka’s and Wellek’s projects; a different context of reception will change the system. Yet the aspirations as well as the tensions of the Prague School still keep the hope of synthesis alive. The next reading, the next translation, might always find that new world.

References: Auerbach, Erich (1956) Romanische Forschungen, 67: 387 – 97. Dolezˇel, Lubom„r (1988) »Literary Transduction: Prague School Approach,« in Tobin, Yishai (ed) The Prague School and its Legacy, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 165 – 76. Robert Fitzgerald (1985) Enlarging the Change: The Princeton Seminars in Literary Criticism 1949 – 51, Boston: Northeastern University Press. Jakobson, Roman (1987) »On Linguistic Aspects of Translation« (1959), in Language in Literature, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 428 – 35. Jakobson, Roman, Krystyna Pomorska (1983) Dialogues, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Lipking, Lawrence (1998) Samuel Johnson: The Life of an Author, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Mukarˇovsky´, Jan (1977) The Word and Verbal Art: Selected Essays, trans. John Burbank and Peter Steiner, New Haven: Yale University Press. Striedter, Jurij (1989) Literary Structure, Evolution, and Value: Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism Reconsidered, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Toman, Jindrˇich (1995) The Magic of a Common Language: Jakobson, Mathesius, Trubetzkoy, and the Prague Linguistic Circle, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

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Wellek, Ren¤ (1991) A History of Modern Criticism, 1750 – 1950, New Haven: Yale University Press, 7: 131 – 34. Wellek, Ren¤ (1992) A History of Modern Criticism, 1750 – 1950, New Haven: Yale University Press, 8: 60. Wellek, Ren¤, Austin Warren (1949) Theory of Literature, New York: Harcourt, Brace.

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Ilias Yocaris

Towards a Neoformalist Approach to Literary Texts: Roman Jakobson’s Conceptual Heritage

Introduction Roman Jakobson’s works on the poetic function of language (see especially Jakobson 1960, Jakobson, L¤vi-Strauss 1962) were at the origin of a real revolution in the field of literary theory. Indeed, Jakobson’s definition of poeticity constituted a major epistemological turning-point: thanks to this definition, literary scholars were able to set up a methodological protocol, a set of concepts and a descriptive (meta)language permitting a thorough unification of the sphere of textual analysis1 and therefore helping to establish a new scientific paradigm.2 What are the main features of this paradigm? The credit to be given to the Jakobsonian approach is double : on the one hand Jakobson was the first (with the Russian formalists) to point out that »the object of literary science is not literature, but … what makes of a given work a literary work« (Todorov 1965, 37), i. e. precisely the »poetic« use of language; on the other hand he was the first to show that in fact the »poeticity« of language does not ensue from a sum of aesthetic or generic specificities but from a series of formal operations open to an »objective« description. At the heart of his theoretical system lies of course the well-known »principle of equivalence« (Jakobson 1960, 358 – 370), which constitutes Jakobson’s major contribution to structural stylistics. We shall set out here to examine the conceptual implications of this principle; with the help of examples we shall describe the protocol of text analysis elaborated by Jakobson, highlighting its strengths and its limitations and drawing at the same time the outlines of what may be called a neo-formalist approach to literary texts.

1 See especially Riffaterre (1971, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1994), Delas, Filliolet (1973), Ruwet (1975, 1981), Groupe l (1970, 1990). 2 On the formation of a founding paradigm in a given subject, see Kuhn (1962), chap. I, II.

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Jakobson’s Definition of the »Poetic Function« This definition is nothing new. As everybody knows, Jakobson defines the »poetic« use of language as follows: »The poetic function projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection [syntagmatic axis] into the axis of combination [paradigmatic axis]. Equivalence is promoted to the constitutive device of the sequence« (Jakobson 1960, 358). But what does this mean concretely? In substance, Jakobson explains that »poetic« utterances are in fact made up of mutually equivalent sequences of signifying units (morphemes, lexemes, syntagms etc.) insofar as they are connected word to word within a system of internal parallelisms and symmetries: in other words, what differentiates the »ordinary« use of language (its referential function) from its »poetic« use is that the choice of words and forms in a poetic statement is not accidental, since the only options kept are the ones permitting to create and/or to prolong a network of formal analogies. Let us give an example: (1) Songe, mensonge3 (French proverb)

This proverb constitutes a »poetic« expression in the Jakobsonian sense of the word, insofar as the two lexemes are »equivalent« from a phonetic point of view. The inclusion of the whole signifier »songe« within »mensonge« functions as an iconic sign which metaphorically reduplicates the message conveyed by the proverb: »dreams are just illusions.« However, if »songe« is replaced by »rÞve«,4 this phenomenon of »semiotic convergence« (Riffaterre 1971, 60 – 62) disappears purely and simply because the two words are not phonetically »equivalent«: unlike »Songe, mensonge«, »RÞve, mensonge« is nothing but an »ordinary« statement, which has in principle no »poetic« dimension.5 3 »Dreams are just illusions«. 4 »RÞve« is another word for »dream«. 5 Of course, the word »poetic« is used lato sensu: if one sticks to the remarks and analyses made by Jakobson himself, it becomes clear that discursive »poeticity« is no prerogative of poetry as a genre, nor of »literary« texts in general, since non literary texts in prose like the well-known motto »I like Ike« may also have a »poetic« function (Jakobson 1960, 357). Therefore, from Jakobson’s point of view, resorting to the »principle of equivalence« is not a distinctive feature which might help to separate poetry from texts in prose or »literary« texts from »non literary« texts, but a specific communicational technique aiming at highlighting the very configuration of the verbal message: in this way any utterance based on »meaningful« parallelisms and positional symmetries may be considered as »poetic«, regardless of the discursive genre it belongs to. However, this conception of »poeticity« is far from being shared by all of Jakobson’s epigones, as some of them either stick to poetry in the traditional sense of the word (Delas, Filliolet 1973, Ruwet 1975, 1981, 1989; Groupe l 1990), or to literary works in general (Riffaterre 1971, 1979; see a contrario Aroui 1996). Such methodological conservatism seems

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Strengths of Jakobson’s definition Introductory Remarks From a strictly stylistic point of view, the interest of the methodological protocol perfected by Jakobson and his conceptual epigones lies in the fact that it helps to describe in a very precise way the interactions developed between different signifying units in »poetic« texts. These interactions provide the poetic language with a twofold dimension, systemic as well as holistic.

The Systemic Dimension of Poetic Language The first implication of the »principle of equivalence« is that the choice of words in a »poetic« text obeys two different series of obligations: (a) constraints emanating from the ordinary rules of language, whether they are syntactic, phonetic, semantic, morphological etc.; (b) constraints emanating from the structure of the text itself, since – as mentioned earlier – it is that structure which determines the choice of such or such word rather than another within a given paradigmatic class. This is for instance what happens in a well-known commercial slogan praising a chain of supermarkets: (2) Avec Carrefour, je positive.6

Here, the choice of the French verb »positiver« derives from a series of constraints progressively restricting the range of expressions that can be used to express »the same idea«, until the selection of this verb becomes almost compulsory : - In the first instance, to preserve the semantic intelligibility and coherence of the message itself, the selected phrases have to be a class of grammatically correct verbal locutions whose sememes roughly contain the seme /meliorative vision/: »Avec Carrefour, je positive/ je me sens bien7/ je vois la vie en rose,8 etc.« to be counterintuitive: the discursive techniques used to create stylistic »equivalences« among verbal constituents have a trans-generic dimension, and may perfectly well be reproduced in »ordinary« language (see infra). Consequently we shall here follow Jakobson’s own theoretic prescriptions. 6 »With Carrefour, I think positive«. 7 »I feel good«. 8 »I look on the bright side of things«.

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- Then, within this paradigm, only the four-syllable phrases are selected, so as to create a rhythmical equivalence which will make the motto easy to remember : »Avec Carrefour (4 syllables)//je positive//je me sens bien« (4 syllables). - In the end, the choice of the verb »positiver« derives from an implicit analogical equivalence with the PN »Carrefour«, since both are visual references to the mathematical + sign: »Carrefour« (ˆ—•ˇ) means »crossroads« in French … What emerges from such an analysis is that the poetic function as viewed by Jakobson implies a form of »overstructuring« or of »double structuring« of the verbal message (Aroui 1996, 9 – 10, 12, Delas, Filliolet 1973, 71, Ruwet 1975, 316 – 317, 1981, 2). What does this mean? In a »poetic« text, each signifying unit happens to be a priori connected to its context in two different ways: (i) through syntagmatic links, necessarily codified, which are organized in a »horizontal« or »linear« way ; (ii) through analogical links, not necessarily codified, which are organized in a »vertical« or »tabular« way (Groupe l 1990, 65). Thus the syntactic connection developed between the PS »Avec Carrefour« and the VS »je positive« is overdetermined by the rhythmical equivalence of the two segments, but also by a transsemiotic analogy which remains implicit [Carrefour !ˆ—•ˇ! »positiver«]. It becomes clear then that the »double structuring« of poetic texts involves going beyond the linearity of language, which becomes ipso facto a network of systemic connections. Indeed, according to Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s well-known definition (1968, 55 – 56), a system is a group of elements (a, b, c etc.) each of which has several different relationships at once with the others (R, R’, R’’ etc.), its behaviour in an R relationship differing from its behaviour in another R’ relationship. Yet, this is exactly what is happening in (2): as can be seen in figure 1, the PS »Avec Carrefour« and the VS »je positive« are connected together through three different relationships, each of which is based on a distinct property (syntactic, phonetic, semantic). Therefore, one can safely say that, from Jakobson’s viewpoint, »poetic« texts function as systems: this point is perfectly underlined by Michael Riffaterre, who puts forward that the formal and semantic unit of poems rests on a »systemic relationship« (Riffaterre 1980, 165) that links together their verbal components.

The Holistic Dimension of Poetic Language The »double structuring« of the poetic text affects its global way of functioning at the semantic level: indeed, the verbal constituents which allow different organisational structures to be assembled on each other should be considered as part and parcel of a whole, insofar as each of them was chosen among an

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unlimited set of possible verbal configurations in accordance with its specific relevance to a system of echoes and intratextual references directing its very significance. In epistemological terms, overstructured texts may be said to have a holistic dimension since some of their components have semantic properties emerging9 due to their integration into different structural devices at the same time (Esfeld 2001, 6 – 17). An example drawn from In Search of Lost Time by Proust may be used to show concretely how this »totalising effect« (Delas, Filliolet 1973, 42) works: it is the well-known scene in Sodom and Gomorrah when the baron de Charlus, a homosexual dedicated body and soul to debauchery, tries to seduce Jupien the tailor, with whom he is about to copulate immediately after the end of the passage. (3) [C]haque fois que M. de Charlus regardait Jupien, il s’arrangeait pour que son regard f•t accompagn¤ d’une parole, ce qui le rendait infiniment dissemblable des regards habituellement dirig¤s sur une personne qu’on conna‚t ou qu’on ne conna‚t pas; il regardait Jupien avec la fixit¤ particuliºre de quelqu’un qui va vous dire: »Pardonnez-moi mon indiscr¤tion, mais vous avez un long fil blanc qui pend dans votre dos«, ou bien: »Je ne dois pas me tromper, vous Þtes aussi de Zurich, il me semble bien vous avoir rencontr¤ souvent chez le marchand d’antiquit¤s«. Telle, toutes les deux minutes, la mÞme question semblait intens¤ment pos¤e ” Jupien dans l’œillade de M. de Charlus, comme 9 On the concept of »emergence«, which has become common place in the theory of systems and the philosophy of science in general, see for example Broad (1960, 61), Nagel (1961, 367 – 368), Bunge (1979, 27 – 30).

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ces phrases interrogatives de Beethoven, r¤p¤t¤es ind¤finiment, ” intervalles ¤gaux, et destin¤es – avec un luxe exag¤r¤ de pr¤parations – ” amener un nouveau motif, un changement de ton, une »rentr¤e«. Mais justement la beaut¤ des regards de M. de Charlus et de Jupien venait, au contraire, de ce que, provisoirement du moins, ces regards ne semblaient pas avoir pour but de conduire ” quelque chose. Cette beaut¤, c’¤tait la premiºre fois que je voyais le baron et Jupien la manifester. Dans les yeux de l’un et de l’autre, c’¤tait le ciel non pas de Zurich, mais de quelque cit¤ orientale dont je n’avais pas encore devin¤ le nom [Sodome], qui venait de se lever. […] [D]¤cid¤ ” brusquer les choses, [Charlus] demanda du feu au giletier, mais observa aussitût: »Je vous demande du feu, mais je vois que j’ai oubli¤ mes cigares«. Les lois de l’hospitalit¤ l’emportºrent sur les rºgles de la coquetterie. »Entrez, on vous donnera tout ce que vous voudrez«, dit le giletier, sur la figure de qui le d¤dain fit place ” la joie.10 (Proust 1988, 7 – 8)

This passage is entirely structured around two main isotopies, the musical (I1) and the erotic (I2) one. I1 and I2 are connected together from the start through the ingenious comparison between Charlus’s ogling and Beethoven’s questioning phrases. They then develop in a parallel way and coincide at the level of a specific word, the substantive »rentr¤e«, whose apparition Proust skilfully postpones in order to end his sentence by a witticism. Why choose such a word? Out of context, »rentr¤e« refers to the re-entry of a musical motif (in a symphony for example). But in this specific case, a second meaning is added on top of this technical meaning: if Beethoven’s musical questioning introduces a »reentry« in the musical sense of the term, Charlus’s ogling introduces quite a different sort of »reentry«, that is to say penetrative sex (hence the final invitation to »come 10 »[E]ach time that M. de Charlus looked at Jupien, he took care that his glance should be accompanied by a word, which made it infinitely unlike the glances we usually direct at a person whom we scarcely know or do not know at all; he stared at Jupien with the peculiar fixity of the person who is about to say to you: ›Excuse my taking the liberty, but you have a long white thread hanging down your back,‹ or else: ›Surely I can’t be mistaken, you come from Zurich too; I’m certain I must have seen you there often at the antique dealer’s.‹ Thus, every other minute, the same question seemed to be put to Jupien intently in M. de Charlus’s ogling, like those questioning phrases of Beethoven’s, indefinitely repeated at regular intervals and intended –with an exaggerated lavishness of preparation– to introduce a new theme, a change of key, a ›re-entry.‹ On the other hand, the beauty of the reciprocal glances of M. de Charlus and Jupien arose precisely from the fact that they did not, for the moment at least, seem to be intended to lead to anything further. It was the first time I had seen the manifestation of this beauty in the Baron and Jupien. In the eyes of both of them, it was the sky not of Zurich but of some oriental city [Sodom], the name of which I had not yet divined, that I saw reflected. […] The latter, deciding to precipitate matters, asked the tailor for a light, but at once observed: ›I ask you for a light, but I see I’ve left my cigars at home.‹ The laws of hospitality prevailed over the rules of coquetry. ›Come inside, you shall have everything you wish,‹ said the tailor, on whose features disdain now gave place to joy.« (Proust 1993, 10; modified by the author)

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inside«…). Such a stylistic arrangement constitutes a clear example of »double structuring«, since Proust’s text reveals both a »linear« order and a »tabular« one. In fact, due to its integration into this complex verbal device, the word »rentr¤e« acquires here a new significance emerging in a holistic way, because in this instance it happens to convey an erotic connotation which is absent out of context.11 We are therefore confronted with a process of »linguistic totalisation« or »integration« (Delas, Filliolet 1973, 107, 179): poetic texts are holistic systems insofar as their global organisation has a direct influence on the semic profile of their verbal components.

Weaknesses of Jakobson’s definition Jakobson’s definition of the »poetic function« raises four main problems:

Incompleteness The description of the devices used in poetic texts to create »tabular« structures which come on top of »linear« structures is, at best, incomplete. Indeed, Jakobson grants – as his exegetes did not fail to notice (Shapiro 1976, Milner 1982) – a scandalous privilege to all sorts of parallelisms (phonetic, semantic, syntactic, metrical…) developing between the elements present in the utterance (Jakobson 1960, 371 – 74). Thus in his well-known stylistic survey of Baudelaire’s sonnet »Les Chats« (Jakobson, L¤vi-Strauss 1962; cf. Starobinski, 2001), he successively goes through the symmetries entailed by -

The nature, position and distribution of the rhymes The syntactic and phrastic structure of each stanza The repetition of some semantic and logical patterns The punctuation The nature and disposition of the grammatical actants The recurrence of some phonemes The distribution of the figures of speech The isotopic structure of the text, etc.

11 In technical terms, the afferent seme /penetrative sex/ is said to come on top of its sememe (Rastier 1996, 44 – 48).

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Yet, such an approach is unsatisfactory for two reasons: 1. Parallelisms in All Their Forms are far from being the only devices by which in praesentia stylistic »equivalences« may be created: this may also be achieved by resorting to other formal operations which are not all taken into account by Jakobson and his epigones. For information only, here are a few of those operations, supported by some examples: (a) Etymological Reactivations In the first line of Victor Hugo’s poem »Soleils couchants«12 (»J’aime les soirs sereins et beaux«13) a double connection develops between the characterised »soirs« and the characteriser »sereins«. Indeed, V. Hugo chose this characteriser in particular rather than its synonyms (»calmes«, »tranquilles«, »paisibles« etc.) because it shares the same etymon with »serein«… The words »soirs« and »sereins« are related by both a syntactic connection and their common etymological roots: Hugo’s text is »overstructured« due to the fact that in this instance the etymological meaning of »serein« (cloudless, clear) finds itself »reactivated« on account of its proximity to »soir«. (b) The Setting-up of Analogical Micro-systems Stanza 8 of the »Bateau ivre«14 by Arthur Rimbaud is »overstructured« because the poet organizes a whole »miniature« analogical system, whose constituents are structured around the comparison »l’aube exalt¤e ainsi qu’un peuple de colombes.« (4) Je sais les cieux crevant en ¤clairs, et les trombes Et les ressacs et les courants : je sais le soir, L’aube exalt¤e ainsi qu’un peuple de colombes, Et j’ai vu quelquefois ce que l’homme a cru voir !15

How does this micro-system work? The different constituents of the NG under study (the substantive »aube«, the past participle »exalt¤e« and the NS »peuple de colombes«) are simultaneously associated through two series of superimposed stylistic connections (see Figure 2): 12 13 14 15

»Sunsets«. »I love these calm clear evening hours«. The Drunken Boat. »I know the lightning-opened skies, watersprouts / Eddies and surfs; I know the night / And dawn arisen like a colony of doves, / And sometimes I have seen what men have thought they saw!«.

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(i) »Aube« is connected to »exalt¤« by an implicit hypallage (the »exaltation« of dawn referring to the exaltation of the lyric self) and by a complex analogical sequence, based on an etymological reactivation (the verb »exalter« comes from the Latin exaltare, » to elevate«) and an implicit synonymic substitution [»aube exalt¤e« ! »aube qui se lºve«]. (ii) The comparison between the dawn (»aube exalt¤e«) and a colony of doves (»peuple de colombes«) is based on the presence of four different semes (/whiteness/, /hope/, /purity/, /rising movement/) that are all shared by the tenor and the vehicle. What is the nature of those semes? /Whiteness/ is inherent to the sememes of »aube« and »colombe«. /Hope/ and /purity/ are »sociolectal afferent semes« (Rastier 1996, 83), since they both belong to the connotations usually attached to the two words out of context. On the contrary, /rising movement/ is an »idiolectal afferent seme« (Rastier 1996, 83), since it emerges only in this specific context due to the above-mentioned etymological reactivation: the overstructuring of Rimbaud’s text results from a complex synergy between organisational components belonging at the same time to syntactic, lexicological, semic and figural orders. (c) The Development of Transsemiotic Analogical Sequences Such a sequence has been discovered in Apollinaire’s poem »Zone« by the great stylistician G¤rard Berthomieu. During one of his lectures, Berthomieu examined a line in which Christ is mentioned in these terms: »C’est la double potence de l’honneur et de l’¤ternit¤« (cf. text 5).16 Apollinaire is obviously resorting here to an etymological reactivation: he uses the word »potence« in its etymological sense (lat. potentia, »power«, a meaning which still exists in French today in the word »omnipotent« for example.) But how can the choice of this reactivation be 16 »It is the double gallows of honour and eternity«.

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justified? Why »double potence« rather than »double puissance«? As Figure 3 shows, resorting to etymological reactivation clearly helps to »overstructure« Apollinaire’s text, since the NS »double potence« becomes an iconic sign referring to the very figure of the Crucified One… (5) Vous priez toute la nuit dans la chapelle du collºge Tandis qu’¤ternelle et adorable profondeur am¤thyste Tourne ” jamais la flamboyante gloire du Christ C’est le beau lys que tous nous cultivons C’est la torche aux cheveux roux que n’¤teint pas le vent C’est le fils p’le et vermeil de la douloureuse mºre C’est l’arbre toujours touffu de toutes les priºres C’est la double potence de l’honneur et de l’¤ternit¤

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2. Poetic Discourse is also »over-structured« by in absentia equivalences: in this case, an isolated verbal constituent or a whole sequence are correlated to one or several others absent from the text. In absentia equivalences of all kinds are described in the works of Michael Riffaterre, who mentions among others: (a) Topic Transformations A large number of poetic texts are based on the transformation of one or several topoi which remain subjacent, but whose implicit presence helps to create »double structuring effects« based on stereotyped thematic series that underlie the linear development of such or such narrative (or descriptive) sequence. This is what may be noted for example in a famous extract from Swan’s Way, the description of the toilets at Combray : (6) [J]e montais sangloter tout en haut de la maison ” cût¤ de la salle d’¤tude, sous les toits, dans une petite piºce sentant l’iris, et que parfumait aussi un cassis sauvage pouss¤ au-dehors entre les pierres de la muraille et qui passait une branche de fleurs par la fenÞtre entrouverte. Destin¤e ” un usage plus sp¤cial et plus vulgaire, cette piºce, d’o· l’on voyait pendant le jour jusqu’au donjon de Roussainville-le-Pin, servit longtemps de refuge pour moi, sans doute parce qu’elle ¤tait la seule qu’il me f•t permis de fermer ” clef, ” toutes celles de mes occupations qui r¤clamaient une inviolable solitude : la lecture, la rÞverie, les larmes et la volupt¤.17

The description of the »little room« (the toilets) is overstructured owing to the fact that it constitutes a »modern« version of the topos of the locus amoenus.18 It must be recalled here that this topos consists of a series of thematic invariants (T1, T2, T3…) diagrammatically represented in Figure 5. In fact, what Proust offers the reader is a variant of this series, since his description contains a group of constituents (C1, C2, C3…) implicitly linked on a term-to-term basis with the 17 »I ran up to the top of the house to cry by myself in a little room beside the schoolroom and beneath the roof, which smelt of orris-root and was scented also by a wild currant-bush which had climbed up between the stones of the outer wall and thrust a flowering branch in through the half-opened window. Intended for a more special and a baser use, this room, from which, in the daytime, I could see as far as the keep of Roussainville-le-Pin, was for a long time my place of refuge, doubtless because it was the only room whose door I was allowed to lock, whenever my occupation was such as required an inviolable solitude: reading or day-dreaming, tears or sensual pleasure«. (Proust 1989, 11) 18 Of course, the topos of the locus amoenus (»delectable place« in Latin) dates back to Greek/ Latin antiquity, but it can also be found in a large number of medieval texts, whether it is for instance the garden described by Guillaume de Lorris in the first part of Le Roman de la Rose, or else the garden in which the heroes of the Decameron by Boccaccio are strolling (third day, introductory chapter).

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main components of a locus amoenus. The »horizontal« semantico-logical connections ensuring the referential coherence of Proust’s text are therefore overdetermined by a series of »vertical« analogical connections linking the main components of the description with their respective topic matrices. The following diagram is then achieved (see Fig. 4). FIG. 4 T series (topos of the locus amoenus) Semantic relationships between T and C C series (description of the »little room«)

T3 (full of greenery)

T4 (with running water)

T5 (in which one indulges in delectable activities)

T1 (isolated place)

T2 (in a bucolic environment)

Isotopic overLapping

Partial isotopic Isotopic Isotopic Implicit overlapping transformation intersection isotopic transposition

C1 (room C2 (in an urban where environment) one can be alone)

C3 (scented by a flowering branch)

[C4 (equipped with hydraulic fittings)]a)

C5 (in which one indulges in reading, day-dreaming, masturbation / in which one can give free rein to his sadness)

a)

Of course, C4 is not explicitly mentioned in Proust’s description, but still remains present in the reader’s mind since the seme /hydraulic fittings/ is inherent to the sememe of »toilets«.

(b) Implicit Intertextual References A textual sequence may also be overstructured through the implicit reference to one or several subjacent hypotexts (or »syntexts«; Ricardou 1978, 304), which may function as so many »stylistic matrices« (Riffaterre 1979, 77; 1980, 12 – 13, 19 – 21; 1982, 100 – 101). Thus, for example, in The Flanders Road by Claude Simon the alternated descriptions of Georges eating grass in a prisoners’ camp and performing a cunnilingus are mutually associated, since they both refer to the same hypotextual matrix, i. e. the obscene slangy expression brouter la touffe (»grazing« / »eating pussy«: see Yocaris 2002, 89 – 90). It must be noted that such a stylistic device, which obviously constitutes the peak of literariness for Riffaterre, can very well be used in non literary texts. By way of proof, all one has to do is to read the sports newspaper L’Ãquipe. On 17 August 2007, the daily paper carried the following headline about the tennis player Virginie Razzano (who had just qualified for the quarter finals of a WTA tournament in Toronto): »Virginie fait un tabac«. This headline is perfectly adequate at referential and syntactic levels, but we may wonder what justifies here (i) the choice of the player’s first name instead of her surname and (ii) the choice of the idiom »fait

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un tabac« [= hits it big]« instead of its equivalents »fait un malheur« or »fait un carton« for example. In fact, both choices are constrained, since the sequence considered is nothing but the expansion of a hypotextual matrix, the NG »tabac de Virginie«…19

Ahistorical Dimension Jakobson’s definition of poeticity validates de facto a self-reflexive ahistorical conception of literariness. This is quite logical, insofar as the stylistic analyses based on the single »principle of equivalence« are bound to highlight the »internal« relationships developing among the different textual constituents (the »intracommunication« phenomena according to Groupe l’s terminology 1970, 19), to the detriment of the links between these constituents and the »extratextual« referent. One may certainly argue that such an approach constitutes a corruption of Jakobson’s ideas (Dominicy 1982, 45 – 46; 1991, 168, n.19; Ruwet 1989, 13 – 14; Aroui 1996, 6 – 7). The fact remains that the insistence on the »selfreferentiality« of literary texts is a real commonplace in the works of Jakobson’s structuralist epigones, who are vying with one another in sensational statements: »the poetic speech discredits itself as an act of communication. In fact, it communicates nothing, or rather it only communicates itself« (Groupe l 1970, 19); »Poetic texts are closed, they have no referent« (Delas, Filliolet 1973, 56); »poetic representation is based on a reference to the signifiers« (Riffaterre 1979, 198), etc. Of course, such methodological isolation just leads to a deadlock, and has greatly contributed to the decline of structuralism in the field of literary studies since the eighties.

Partial Inadequacy Jakobson’s definition turns out to be ineffective when we are confronted with texts deprived of cohesion on the syntagmatic plan. Indeed, a text cannot be »overstructured« if it is not structured, in other words if it does not retain a minimum amount of syntactic and logical coherence! Confronted with this tricky problem, which mostly comes up when one is working on twentiethcentury poetry, Jakobson’s epigones adopt very different positions. Some of them, like Nicolas Ruwet, try to get round the difficulty by making an absolute aesthetic norm of the »double structuring« precept, and by purely and simply ruling out from the field of poetry the works which do not comply with Ja19 Virginia tobacco.

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kobson’s patterns of analysis (see Ruwet 1975, 349 – 350). Others, like Groupe l’s rhetoricians, do their best to adapt those patterns to the reality of the situation: they hence admit that »poetic reading better acknowledges the organizing structure of a text through a specific tabular model than through a linear disposition« (Groupe l 1990, 319), which comes down to giving up de facto the »double structuring« principle. Others still, following the example of Michael Riffaterre, are trying to show that in fact poeticity results from a conflict between »linear« and »tabular« structures, the interference between two distinct organisational systems generating referential and semantic incongruities which draw the reader’s attention to the reticular and »totalising« dimension of truly »poetic« texts (Riffaterre 1979, 196; 1980, 2 – 3, 88 – 91, 136). Needless to say that none of these theoretical options is fully satisfying, insofar as the three of them are based on axioms having a local impact alone, and not a universal one: a protocol of analysis likely to be applied to all poetic texts without exception is still to be found…

Methodological »Pointillism« Resorting systematically to the »double structuring« concept informs in a decisive way one’s viewpoint on poetic texts. Indeed, the latter are considered as multidirectional networks containing a series of nodal points (textual segments helping to structure together different organisational mechanisms) on which the analyst’s attention usually focuses. Thus for example, in text (3), the analyst will focus his attention – as we actually did – on the presence of the word »rentr¤e«, a relational knot linking together the musical isotopy and the erotic one. But what about the constituents which do not belong to the fabric of systemic relationships thus discovered? Those constituents are relegated to a position of secondary importance: thus, the analyst tends to favour a »pointillist« approach, since he minimises the part played by textual sequences and syntactic connections which do not help to create in praesentia and in absentia stylistic equivalences. This is probably why Jakobson’s structuralist epigones all insist, except for D. Delas and J. Filliolet (1973, 62 – 89), on word stylistics (Riffaterre 1979, 61 – 74; Groupe l 1990, 29 – 84), to the detriment of sentence stylistics: the syntactic and phrastic construction of poetic texts is not examined as a significant fact in itself (Ruwet 1989, 15), since the focus is either on the recurrences of the same constructional pattern (Groupe l 1990, 34 – 37), or on the phenomena of in absentia equivalence between a whole sentence and its hypotextual matrix (Riffaterre 1979, 45 – 60), or else (while slightly departing from Jakobson’s patterns of analysis) on syntactic deviations from an arbitrarily defined norm (Groupe l 1970, 67 – 90).

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Outline of a Neo-formalist Approach A neo-formalist approach should rest on the conceptual and methodological experience acquired through the »classical« structuralist approach, while providing theoretical innovations permitting a remedy –at least partly – for the above mentioned difficulties. This is roughly what those innovations might consist in:

The Use of Iconic Descriptive Tools Since the analytic approach advocated by Jakobson and his epigones is clearly based on a form of »spacialization« or »geometrization« of poetic discourse (Shapiro 1976, 432, Riffaterre 1980, 61), stylisticians drawing their inspiration from it would be well advised to resort to diagrams helping to »visualize« the complexity of interactions developing among the different constituents of poetic texts. It is to be noted that the process of diagrammatic formalization may not only concern microtextual (see Fig. 2, 3) but also macrotextual structures: a play, a short story, even a whole novel (as for example La Mise en scºne by Claude Ollier : see Fig. 5) can be the subject of a diagrammatisation. Besides, thanks to the continuous improvements in computer science, it has now become possible to make use of 3D animations, which can be quite useful to reproduce the »rhizomatic« dimension of some works of postmodernist fiction (such as Claude Simon’s Triptych or Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Topologie d’une cit¤ fantúme) whose fictional world no longer lends itself to a stable, unitary representation deprived of contradictions (Ricardou 1978, 223 – 243; Yocaris 2006).

The Use of the Goodmanian Concept of »Exemplification« A large-scale use of the concept of exemplification (see Goodman 1968, 1978; Genette 1991; Jenny 1997, 2000; Yocaris 2008) makes it possible to adopt a non self-reflexive formalist approach, since the »tabular« mechanisms implemented in poetic texts may be considered in some cases not as simple stylistic marks aimed at making verbal matter perceptible, but as complex signs obliquely expressing a referential content which must be taken into account in the same way as denotative thematic data. This is for instance what happens in text (7), a Malherbe’s Ode singing the praises of Marie de’ Medici (»÷ la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France,« 1600).

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(7) Ce sera vous qui de nos villes Ferez la beaut¤ refleurir, Vous, qui de nos haines civiles Ferez la racine mourir ; Et par vous la paix assur¤e N’aura pas la courte dur¤e Qu’espºrent infidºlement, Non lass¤s de notre souffrance, Ces FranÅais qui n’ont de la France Que la langue et l’habillement.20

20 »You are the one who in our cities / Will make beauty flourish anew, / You, who will uproot / Our civil hatreds; / And through you, peace now ensured / Won’t be as short-lived / As unfaithfully hope / Unwearied by our suffering / Those French people who are French / Only in language and attire.«

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The setting up of a whole system of echoes and constructional symmetries in this ten-line stanza21 enables the reader to pick out the predicates »order«, »regularity«, »balance« that are thus denotated and exemplified simultaneously : the syntactic and metrical structures of the text clearly metaphorise the unchanging stability of the monarchy … Therefore, Malherbe’s poem, owing to the fact that it makes apparent a whole network of »internal« formal symmetries, becomes a »trace« of the sociological and political context which has partly determined its production: we are a long way from the »non referential« and »un-historical« readings advocated by M. Riffaterre (1979, 84).

The Use of Appropriate Tools to Study Enunciative and Syntactic Structures The rapid development of textual linguistics and pragmatics since the early eighties has opened new perspectives for structural stylistics. Indeed, the surveys concerning enunciative polyphony in all its forms (Ducrot 1984), the use of implicit assertions (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1986), the emergence of a discursive coherence (Charolles 1978; Calas 2006), »textual construction of the point of view« (Rabatel 1998) or else the use of deictics (Morel, Danon-Boileau 1992) unquestionably enable a better definition of the »totalization« phenomena which can be observed in poetic texts. However, the least that can be said is that research in this field is just in its infancy : most of the complex discursive interactions described by linguists and pragmaticians still remain out of the field of vision of stylistics, for want of a trans-disciplinary protocol of analysis acting as an »interface« between the sciences of language and traditional hermeneutics. Establishing such a protocol will be an exciting challenge for literary scholars in the forthcoming years.

References: Aroui, Jean-Louis (1996) »L’interface forme/sens en po¤tique (post-)jakobsonienne,« in Dominicy, Marc (ed) Linguistique et po¤tique: aprºs Jakobson, Langue franÅaise, 110.1: 4 – 15. Berrendonner, Alain (1981) Ãl¤ments de pragmatique linguistique, Paris: Minuit. 21 As a matter of fact, one notices immediately : (a) the near-exclusive predominance of pair rhythms; (b) the symmetrical disposition of the lines in alternate, couplet and enclosing rhymes according to a 4+2+4 pattern ; (c) the triple repetition of »vous«; (d) the duplication of the syntactic pattern [cleft sentence + relative clause + factitive construction] (»c’est vous qui ferez x); (e) the use of antithetic terms (»refleurir« / »mourir«), etc.

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Bertalanffy, Ludwig von (1968) General System Theory : Foundations, Development, Applications, New York: Braziller. Broad, Charles D. (1960) The Mind and its Place in Nature, Paterson, N.J.: Littlefield Adams. Bunge, Mario (1979) Treatise on Basic Philosophy, vol. 4, Ontology II : a World of Systems, Dordrecht: Reidel. Calas, Fr¤d¤ric (ed.) (2006) Coh¤rence et discours, Paris: Presses Universitaires de ParisSorbonne. Charolles, Michel (1978) »Introduction aux problºmes de la coh¤rence des textes (approche th¤orique et ¤tude des pratiques p¤dagogiques)«, Langue FranÅaise, 38: 7 – 41. Delas, Daniel, Jacques Filliolet (1973) Linguistique et po¤tique, Paris: Larousse. Deleuze, Gilles, F¤lix Guattari (1980) Mille plateaux, Paris: Minuit. Dominicy, Marc (1982) »La po¤tique de Jakobson,« in Dierickx, J. (ed) Initiation ” la linguistique contemporaine, vol. 3, Brussels: Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles, 42 – 56. Dominicy, Marc (1991) »Sur l’¤pist¤mologie de la po¤tique,« Histoire Ãpist¤mologie Langage, 13.1: 151 – 74. Dominicy, Marc (ed.) (1996) Linguistique et po¤tique : aprºs Jakobson, Langue franÅaise, 110.1. Ducrot, Oswald (1984) Le Dire et le dit, Paris: Minuit. Esfeld, Michael (2001) Holism in philosophy of mind and philosophy of physics, Dordrecht: Kluwer. Genette, G¤rard (1976) Mimologiques : voyage en Cratylie, Paris: Seuil. Genette, G¤rard (1991) Fiction et diction, Paris: Seuil. Goodman, Nelson (1968) Languages of Art. An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, Indianapolis; New York; Kansas City : Bobbs-Merrill. Goodman, Nelson (1978) Ways of Worldmaking, Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett. Groupe m (1970) Rh¤torique g¤n¤rale, Paris: Larousse. Groupe m (1990) Rh¤torique de la po¤sie: lecture lin¤aire, lecture tabulaire, Paris: Seuil. Jakobson, Roman (1960) »Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics,« in Sebeok, Thomas (ed.), Style in Language, Massachussets: The MIT Press, 350 – 77. Jakobson, Roman, Claude L¤vi-Strauss (1962) »›Les Chats’ de Charles Baudelaire,« L’Homme, 2.1: 5 – 21. Jenny, Laurent (1997) »Sur le style litt¤raire,« Litt¤rature, 108: 92 – 101. Jenny, Laurent (2000) »Du style comme pratique,« Litt¤rature, 118: 98 – 117. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine (1986) L’Implicite, Paris: Armand Colin. Kuhn, Thomas S. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Milner, Jean-Claude (1982) »÷ Roman Jakobson, ou le bonheur par la sym¤trie,« in Ordres et raisons de langue, Paris: Seuil, 329 – 337. Molini¤, Georges and Pierre Cahn¤ (eds) (1994) Qu’est-ce que le style? Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Morel, Mary-Annick, Laurent Danon-Boileau (eds) (1992) La Deixis, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Nagel, Ernest (1961) The Structure of Science. Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

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Proust, Marcel (1987) ÷ la recherche du temps perdu, vol. 1, Bibliothºque de la Pl¤iade, Paris: Gallimard. Proust, Marcel (1988) ÷ la recherche du temps perdu, vol. 3, Bibliothºque de la Pl¤iade, Paris, Gallimard. Proust, Marcel (1989) Swann’s Way, trans. Charles Kenneth Scott-Moncrieff, rev. Terence Kilmartin and Dennis Joseph Enright, New York, Vintage. Proust, Marcel (1993) In Search of Lost Time, vol. 4, Sodom and Gomorrah, trans. Charles Kenneth Scott-Moncrieff, rev. Terence Kilmartin and Dennis Joseph Enright, New York, Modern Library. Rabatel, Alain (1998) La Construction textuelle du point de vue, Lausanne; Paris: Delachaux & Niestl¤. Rastier, FranÅois (1996) S¤mantique interpr¤tative, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Rastier, FranÅois (2001) Arts et sciences du texte, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Ricardou, Jean (1967) Problºmes du nouveau roman, Paris: Seuil. Ricardou, Jean (1971) Pour une th¤orie du nouveau roman, Paris: Seuil. Ricardou, Jean (1978) Nouveaux problºmes du roman, Paris: Seuil. Ricardou, Jean (1990) Le Nouveau Roman, Paris: Seuil. Riffaterre, Michael (1971) Essais de stylistique structurale, trans. Daniel Delas, Paris: Flammarion. Riffaterre, Michael (1979) La Production du texte, Paris: Seuil. Riffaterre, Michael (1980) Semiotics of Poetry, London: Methuen. Riffaterre, Michael (1982) »L’illusion r¤f¤rentielle,« in G¤rard Genette and Tzvetan Todorov (ed.) Litt¤rature et r¤alit¤, Paris: Seuil, 91 – 118. Riffaterre, Michael (1994) »L’inscription du sujet,« in Molini¤, Georges and Cahn¤, Pierre (eds) Qu’est-ce que le style?, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 283 – 312. Rosier, Laurence (1999) Le Discours rapport¤ : histoire, th¤ories, pratiques, Paris; Brussels: Duculot. Ruwet, Nicolas (1972) Langage, musique, po¤sie, Paris: Seuil. Ruwet, Nicolas (1975) »Parall¤lismes et d¤viations en po¤sie,« in Julia Kristeva et al. (eds) Langue, discours, soci¤t¤. Pour Ãmile Benveniste, Paris: Seuil, 307 – 351. Ruwet, Nicolas (1981) »Linguistique et po¤tique. Une brºve introduction,« Le FranÅais moderne, 49.1: 1 – 19. Ruwet, Nicolas (1989) »Roman Jakobson. Linguistique et po¤tique, vingt-cinq ans aprºs,« in Dominicy, Marc (ed), Le Souci des apparences, Brussels, Ãditions de l’Universit¤ de Bruxelles, 11 – 30. Shapiro, Michael (1976) »Deux paralogismes de la po¤tique,« trans. from American by Jean-Albert Margaine, Po¤tique, 28: 423 – 39. Starobinski, Jean (2001): »›Les Chats’ de Charles Baudelaire: une relecture,« Romanistische Zeitschrift fîr Literaturgeschichte/Cahiers d’Histoire des Litt¤ratures Romanes, 25.1 – 2: 105 – 22. Todorov, Tzvetan (ed.) (1965) Th¤orie de la litt¤rature. Textes des Formalistes russes r¤unis, pr¤sent¤s et traduits par Tzvetan Todorov, Paris: Seuil. Yocaris, Ilias (2002) L’Impossible totalit¤. Une ¤tude de la complexit¤ dans l’œuvre de Claude Simon, Toronto: Paratexte. Yocaris, Ilias (2006) »La discoh¤rence dans Triptyque et LeÅon de choses de Claude Simon,«

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in Calas, Fr¤d¤ric (ed.) Coh¤rence et discours, Paris: Presses Universitaires de ParisSorbonne, 399 – 408. Yocaris, Ilias (2008) »Style et r¤f¤rence: le concept goodmanien d’’exemplification’,« Po¤tique, 154, 225 – 248.

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Shirley Sharon-Zisser

The Poetic Function from Jakobson to Lacan: A Lacanian Theory of Poetics

The »projection of the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection to the axis of combination,« so did Roman Jakobson famously formulate the poetic function (Jakobson 1981, 27). Such projection precipitates signifying chains in which the sequential combination of formally different units (for instance, noun and verb, iamb and spondee) is substituted by the sequential combination of formally equal units (most notably units of prosody or meter). A dense textual fabric is formed, a poetic text(ure) whose hallmarks are formal repetition at the same time as »frustrated expectation« or »defeated anticipation« (Jakobson 1981, 28, 42) as it is precisely repetition within a linguistic function different to that which Jakobson calls »the usual speech form« (1981, 42) in its sequence and diachrony which makes it possible for the (linguistically) unfamiliar to emerge, for a linguistic segment that is poetic to become defamiliarized, to use Shklovsky’s term (1965), or to use Freud’s term, theorized only a little later than »Art as Technique,« for the angst-related affect generated in the psychic apparatus when the strange and the familiar fold into one another, unheimlich (1919 h). But I anticipate myself. Jakobson’s conceptualization of language’s (at least partially) sense-exceeding dimension, most frequently encountered in poetry, as a functional effect of the rhetorically-determined axes marking the limits of language itself has had a varied and influential legacy in contemporary literary and linguistic theory, not least in Derrida’s category of textual aporias – a derivative of conceptual aporias in which a category which cancels out its very conditions of possibility – which might be regarded in Jakobsonian terms as the poetic function driven to an absolute pitch of intensity. For what is the Derridean aporia if not an impossible passage, an impass(age), a milieu which does not, Derrida says, allow for kinesis of any kind (1993, 29), including, one might say, the passage of sense; an impasse of sense (in French, impas du sens) which becomes a pas du sense, an absence of sense, non-sense, a state of the signifier wherein what Jakobson calls the »cognitive function,« the function correlated with the referent, is not only, as he puts it »more or less dimmed« (Jakobson 1981, 89) but altogether blacked out,

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blocked. If for Jakobson the referent is one of language’s functions, which may be dimmed or foregrounded in a given linguistic instance, for Derrida in his early work, notably Of Grammatology, the referent or, he says, »the transcendental signified« (1976, 158), cannot legitimately be located outside the linguistic event, outside of the text. The linguistic aporia, then, would be for Derrida the marking at once of language’s absolute edge, unendurable ledge, »pure possibility,« he says, »of cutting off,« (1993, 78), and of the immanence of this l-edge in each and every component of a linguistic event. Always already manifesting the intransgressibility of the signifier towards a transcendental signified, Derrida’s aporia may be read as a deconstructive notation of the Jakobsonian poetic function not as a peculiar instance of language but as exposing the very structure of the sign with respect to its beyond. And yet this radical refusal of a beyond has a before which it logically precedes rather than transcends, a future anterior whose roots, uncannily glimpsed above, are Freudian. Jacques Lacan’s return to Freud ” la lettre in terms of the linguistic theories of Saussure and Jakobson shares the interest of Derrida, whose work its beginnings historically precede, in the defiles of the signifier. And yet the letter of the Freudian text, most markedly the Freudian concept of the inassimilable thing (derivative of the Kantian »thing in itself,« the noumenon inaccessible to consciousness’s spatio-temporal modes of perception)1 escaping the pleasure principle’s judgment (a literal judgment of taste, made in terms of the wish to eat or to spit out) determining a perceptum’s accession to the status of representation or signifier,2 leads Lacan to increasingly emphasize in his teaching an operator which is precisely outside representation, outside of the text: the Freudian lost object which refuses the logic of absence, the Freudian thing made operable for analytic praxis which Lacan writes as the object small a. Outside of the frame of the phantasm. Exterior, foreign, even to the Other scene of the unconscious. Outside of the text. Lacan’s teaching, then, casts not only ego psychology and the object relations psychology of Melanie Klein and the English school (Fairbairn, Guntrip, Winnicott) but also deconstructive philosophy, as logically pre-Freudian: concealments, in Heideggerean terms, of the ontological opening in the history of thinking constituted by the Freudian discovery of the unconscious as an other scene (andere Schauplatz) in which signifying chains unknown to the conscious mind and the ego but deploying the rhetorical mechanisms of metaphor and metonymy, condensation and displacement, which Jakobson locates as the 1 Kant develops the concept of the »thing in itself« in The Critique of Pure Reason (1999), e. g. A254/B310, P362. 2 See especially Freud’s Project for a Scientific Psychology (1887 – 1902, 239) and »Negation« (1925 h, 238).

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structuring principles of language, fold and unfold themselves. It is precisely at the level of the formalism (of the Czech tradition) Lacan writes in his fifth seminar of 1958, on the formations of the unconscious, namely of a structural theory of the signifier as such, that Freud »situates himself from the beginning« (1957 – 1958, lesson of 6 November 1957). »Starting with Freud,« Lacan writes in the article on »The Subversion of the Subject« of the same year, »the unconscious becomes a chain of signifiers that […] insists somewhere« (»on another stage or in a different scene,« as he wrote), a chain of signifiers whose governing mechanisms »correspond exactly to the function [the Prague school] believes determine the most radical axes of the effects of language, namely metaphor and metonymy – in other words, the effects of the substitution and combination of signifiers in the synchronic and diachronic dimensions, respectively, in which they appear in discourse« (1958 [2005], 676 – 77). But if one starts with Freud, as Lacan indeed does, one should add, as he does not always do in his early work which places the signifier at center stage, that what the »linguistic analysis« of the Prague school »allows us to detect as being the essential modes of […] the combinations of signifiers« including in the poetic form where combination wholly eclipses selection and substitution, are »strictly identifiable with […] overlap in an exhaustive fashion« with the clinical laws »by which a phenomenon can be recognized as belonging to the formations of the unconscious« (1957 – 58, lesson of 20 November 1957) only on condition of these signifiers’ constant delineation of their beyond which manifests itself in their very repetitions. It is precisely as a function of this beyond, the beyond of the Thing (das Ding) that the Other scene of the unconscious becomes, in Freudian and Lacanian terms, the scene of the poetic function. For if poetic language, as Mukarˇovsky´ puts it, ceaselessly performs the work of the »violation of the norm« (1964, 22), is it not homeomorphic with the violations of universals (for instance, the universal of anatomical functions of zones of the human organism) involved in erogenization qua aberration, Freud’s term (1905d)3 for the constitutively perverse nature of sexuality as precipitate of the unconscious? Poetry, Lacan says in his third seminar, echoing the formulations of Shklovsky and Mukarˇovsky´, »is the creation of a subject adopting a new order of symbolic relations to the world« (1955 – 1956 [1993], 78). Poetry, he says in his twentyfourth seminar, echoing Mukarˇovsky´ even more closely, depends on »the violence done to usage,« in the case of poetry, normative linguistic usage (lesson of 3 It is in the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (Freud 1905d) that Freud unfolds a metapsychological theorization of sexuality as structurally based on »aberration,« most poignantly the aberration of a portion of the organism (what he terms the erotogenic organ) from the survival function it is supposed to fulfill according to the universal principles of anatomy, to the function of serving as an object of the satisfaction of the drive in its constant motion.

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15 March 1977). Just so, one could say following Freud’s Three Essays on Sexuality (1905d), does the erotogenic organ, wrenched from its ego-serving and anatomical function and perverted to serve the satisfaction of the drive.4 Sexuality is poetic; insofar as it is always already perverse. And inversely, the poetic function as a category of structure is structurally sexual in its predication on the operation of othering (violation of the norm, defamiliarization, defeated anticipation). But Lacan is more precise than that, throughout his teaching and increasingly so towards its closure, adumbrating a theory of structure, and a theory of poetry, which radically question Jakobson’s stated assertions concerning the immanence to the poetic function of the binding together of »thematic and compositional framework« (1949 [1981], 17; 1960 [1981], 44; 1970 [1981], 301) at the same time as they take the Jakobsonian theory of structure in poetry as their point of departure. »The essential to structuralism,« Lacan says in his sixteenth seminar, is the »lack in the signifying chain« (lesson of 12 March 1969), the arbitrary gap, in Saussurian terms, marking the difference between one signifier and another.5 This lack or gap enables movement in the signifying chain: movement along the axes of selection and combination, the motion of folding of the axis of selection onto the axis of combination constitutive of the poetic function (1960 [1981], the motion of folding and unfolding, flux and reflux, which Jakobson masterfully sketches within the poetic structure of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129 »The expense of spirit« (1970 [1981]). At the conclusion of this masterful sketch Jakobson speaks of »the cogent and mandatory unity« of poetic texture and meaning (1970 [1981], 301), whose critical unfolding must, he stresses, »be corroborated by a structural analysis« attentive to grammatic categories summoned, in poetry, to perform »novel tasks« (1961 [1981], 97). For Jakobson, the curves of movement in language, especially poetic language, made possible by the differential structure of the signifier, precipitate new meanings, critically articulable only to the extent they are corroborated by linguistic analysis. New meanings, subtended by novel usages of linguistic forms, are the effect of the sliding of the signifier, especially along the parabolic curve of the poetic function. An interest in »the effects of language« made possible by its gaps is indeed, Lacan says in his fifteenth seminar, the common denominator of theories of structuralism (lesson of 13 March 1968). In his sixteenth seminar, Lacan equates these effects with the precipitation of »wandering objects in the 4 Freud’s most cogent formulation of the erotogenic organ as a portion of the organism wrenched from its anatomical function and used for a satisfaction exceeding the needs of survival is in the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d, 181 – 84). See also the essay on »The Psychoanalytic View of a Psychogenic Disturbance of Vision« (1910i). 5 See Saussure’s formulation of language in the Course in General Linguistics as a »purely differential« system wherein the differential gaps between signifiers are arbitrary (1966, 120).

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signifying chain« (lesson of 12 March 1969). And yet these wandering objects are not new meanings; not even in poetry. And not only because, in Mukarˇovsky´’s terms, the expansion of standard language, of the treasury of signifiers and their semantic precipitates or signifieds, is »beyond the scope of poetic language« (1964, 28). If poetry is structurally sexual, as a psychoanalytic analysis of Mukarˇovsky´’s and Jakobson’s structuralist theories of poetic language would suggest, this in no way manifests itself in the semantic register of poetry, much as this register, taking its material from the phantasm6 (in psychoanalytic terms, the subject’s unconscious relation to the lost object in its phenomenal manifestations) so often concerns itself with the vicissitudes of love life. Instead, Lacan says in the sixth seminar, what poetry clearly and precisely gives to be seen is how »the poetic relationship to desire is poorly accommodated […] to the depiction of its [topic]« (lesson of 12 November 1958). Poorly accommodated not because of any limitation of its signifying ability, but because of the inherent incapacity, Lacan says in a later seminar, of any Bedeutung (Frege’s term, variously translated as reference, denotation, meaning)7 in the chain of signifiers constituting a subject’s unconscious »to cover what is involved in sex.« (1966 – 67, lesson of 11 January 1967). Hence the Bedeutung poetry generates is always already a flawed Bedeutung, »struck by some caducity or other« (Lacan 1966 – 67, lesson of 11 January 1967) at the very point where the poet purports to provide a conscious, Cartesian and perhaps also universal articulation to the (impossible) sexual ratio between man and woman. And yet because this caducity of »the poetic approach to desire when it itself is properly speaking sought and aimed at« (Lacan 1958 – 59, lesson of 12 November, 1958) takes place on the parabolic curve of the poetic function, enabled, in Saussurean terms, by the differential gap between signifiers and capitalizing on this gap’s mobilizing effects, it takes the form of the particular mobilization, particular movement of the soaring failure. A movement which becomes, Lacan states in his sixth seminar on desire and its interpretation, the poetic function’s unique mode of the »evocation« (as distinct from depiction) of desire (1958 – 59, lesson of 12 November 1958). What subtends the poetic function’s structural sexuation, Lacan suggests, is this function’s intensification of the differential gap between signifiers, which has the evocation of desire’s movement of aborted soaring towards a metonymic object as its effect. And yet when Lacan again speaks of the poetic function eight years later, with Roman Jakobson in the audience at his seminar, it is not the differential gap but 6 This formulation concerning the source of poetry’s semantic material in the phantasm appears in Lacan’s twenty-fifth seminar, lesson of 20 December 1977. 7 Frege’s concept of Bedeutung which is Lacan’s conceptual point of departure in this development concerning the structuralist category of the poetic function is developed in his influential article »On Sense and Reference« (1980).

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another, more radical form of things which are not what he indicates as endemic to poetry’s structural sexuation, to the work of »sexual desire« and enjoyment as poetry’s structural principle8 : not the Euclidean absence of the gap or lack, but the topological absence of the hole, or more precisely, the vacuole, his term for the (lost) object beyond the signifying chain, which he denominates as the object small a. The question Lacan puts to Jakobson in his fourteenth seminar is whether »he, whose teaching on language has […] such consequences« for psychoanalysis, »also thinks […] that his teaching is of a nature to require a radical change of position at the level […] of what constitutes the subject« (1966 – 67, lesson of 14 February 1967). The »radical change« at which Lacan gestures is his own recasting of structure. Structure is now no longer taken only in the classical structuralist sense of a covariant ensemble enabling diachronic and synchronic slidings of signifiers. In the presence of Jakobson, who attended the seminar on that day, Lacan redefines structure as »real« (Lacan 1966 – 1967, lesson of 14 February 1967), that is, as an ensemble whose »truth« is the objecthole cast out from it to retroactively function as its cause (Lacan 1966 – 67, lesson of 11 January 1967). It is Jakobson’s implication, as early as »Linguistics and Poetics« (1960 [1981]) that the poetic function involves a problematization of the referent (what Lacan will recast as the hole of the object a, the vacuole) that enables Lacan to suggest that his (Jakobson’s) theory of linguistic structure points towards this object as the »cause of discourse itself« (1968 – 69, lesson of 20 November 1968). Only the »anatomy of the vacuole,« of the hole not the lack, Lacan says in a discussion of the poetry of courtly love in his sixteenth seminar, can explain the relationship of poetry to sexual desire and enjoyment at its structural principle (to be sharply distinguished from its conscious theme) (1968 – 69, lesson of 12 March 1969). This is because the vacuole functions in the psychic apparatus not only as the hors-texte, the cause beyond the chain of signifiers that is the unconscious, but at the same time as the empty center, the »edge structure,« in terms of vector theory, which allows the drive to perform the work of its »rotational flux« (Lacan 1968 – 69, lesson of 12 March 1969). The drive’s pressure, which Freud calls its Drang (1915c), is the pressure to rediscover the primordial satisfaction whose exclusion, Ausstossung from psychic representation, becomes the condition of psychic representation, a temporal looping backwards, a rotation around the hole (in psychic representation, in satisfaction) the operation of Ausstossung institutes as psychic cause.9 The substitute objects in relation to which the drive obtains satisfaction: breast, 8 On sexual desire as poetry’s structural principle see Lacan (1968 – 69, lesson of 12 March 1969). 9 See Freud’s theory of the drive as elaborated in »Instincts and Their Vicissitudes« (1915c, 122 – 24).

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excrement, gaze and voice as libidinal objects, the objects of love life, objets d’art, including poetry,10 are thus not only objets trouv¤es, phenomenal veils of the hole they never even fully cover encountered in a linear movement towards it, but effects generated by the very circular motion, the rotational flux of curbing around this hole. Which cannot be said. Which does not cease not to be written. Poetry is a form of this rotational flux; paradigmatic because like the work of the psychic apparatus itself, it is a practice of the letter, an effort at writing. Every poet in his effort to write, to enchain signifiers, writes Lacanian analyst and poet Jo Atti¤, aims at a non-dialectical point beyond the work of the signifier ; at his own unsayable as the Archimedean point of his writing. Once he has marked this, point, this hole, the poet does not cease, in his writing, to turn around it, impossibly seeking to name it; the precipitate of this turning is poetry as object (2006, 1 – 4). But it is not only and perhaps not even primarily Jakobson’s correlation of the poetic function with the occlusion of the referent (in Lacan’s terms, the vacuole), which enables Lacan to suggest to him the radical implications of his structuralist poetics. For the vacuole, cause of the signifying chain, is not a philosophical postulate in the knowable’s beyond (the modes of perception, the chain of signifiers) but indexed within the knowable. Indexed in poetry, for instance, as Lacan states in the fourteenth seminar, precisely at the point in which the poetic speaker ceases to be a Cartesian »I,« presenting the conscious contents of his »I think« which purportedly grounds his »I am,« and manifests himself as »the ›I‹ of the ›I am not thinking‹« manifests himself, that is, as what is radically split off from the Cogito (1966 – 67, lesson of 11 January 1967). And are not poetic moments where the Cartesian »I« of the poetic speaker is debunked to the benefit of what cannot be thought or said, remains opaque to sense, particular instances of what Lacan describes in the fourteenth seminar (1966 – 67) as the Bedeutung’s being struck by caducity, its becoming a holed Bedeutung? In Lacan’s terms, then, the vacuole not only precipitates but manifests itself in the convariant ensemble of signifiers: not in their differential gaps, not, in Derridean terms, in instances of diff¤rance, but precisely at moments of an opacity irreducible to semantic sense. Is not this another name for what Jakobson theorizes as the poetry of grammar (1961 [1981]), linguistic forms as they function in poetry, playing a decisive role in the poetic function? 10 In the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (Freud 1905d), Freud speaks only of breast, excrement and phallus as objects of the drive. In Lacan’s elaboration of the theory of the drives, especially in the tenth seminar on Anxiety (1962 – 63), Lacan adds two new objects of psychoanalytic theory ; gaze and voice. It is in this same seminar that Lacan speaks of cultural objects, objects outside of the body, including art objects, including poetic objects, as structurally coeval with these natural objects. All of these objects, in Lacan’s theorization, are phenomenal veils of the void of the lost object.

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If so, then the implications of Jakobson’s thinking on poetic language are indeed more radical than his explicit insistence on grammar’s support of poetic sense. If the poetry of grammar is the isolatable register Jakobson claims it is (1961 [1981]), it can never be reducible, translatable, to poetic sense. It is what is constitutively excessive of sense, what objects to sense, what functions as momentary indices of the object cause (the vacuole) around which poetic writing revolves, precipitating poetry as a libidinal object. The radical implication of Jakobsonian poetics Lacan points towards is that poetry of grammar, and, I venture (Sharon-Zisser 2008), poetry’s stylistic, primarily rhetorical dimension at large are not only not the supports of sense Jakobson makes them be in what may be a belief in the possibility of a sexual ratio, but not merely aporetic. They do not only bring the sense of a poem to a dead end, disabling further hermeneutic movement, but make whatever sense has already accumulated leak. Poetry, Lacan says in his twenty-fourth seminar, consists not only of an »effect of sense,« but just as much of a »hole effect« (¤ffet du trou) which reduces this effect of sense to a »pure knotting of one word to an other« (1976 – 77, lesson of 15 March 1977), a knotting signifying nothing and by this very property pointing at the emptiness (of the Thing, of the vacuole) around which libidinal (and poetic) life revolves (Lacan 1976 – 77, lesson of 15 March 1977). »How does the poet accomplish this tour de force, to make sense be absent?« Lacan asks in the twenty fourth seminar (1976 – 177, lesson of 15 March 1977). The answer Lacan does not spell out may be implicit in the declaration he made to Jakobson ten years earlier regarding the radical effects of Jakobson’s literary theory. The tour de force is not only the effect of the rotational flux of signifiers around the hole which makes every poetic text a vortex(t) whose centripetal motion rips signifieds from the poetic chain of signifiers and swallows their debris. The tour (turn) which turns the poetic text trou (hole) is, as this anagram perhaps suggests, an effect of the work of the letter, the dimension of language exceeding sense whose more macrostructural manifestation is the forms of grammar and rhetoric, of style. Each instance of what Jakobson calls the grammar of poetry, what I have called the erotics of rhetoric (Sharon-Zisser 2000, 2008), signifying nothing, hence creates a trou-matisme, a small wound or hole in the poetic text’s Bedeutung, a hole which the libidinal cathexis (of the poet, of the reader) dynamizes, turns vortex(t)11 centripetally voiding the text of sense. The poetic text is structurally topological: the chain of stylistic forms qua microstructural vortices, singular in the ways they function as attempted solutions to the poet’s mode of enjoyment (that is, satisfaction in suffering), producing a macrostructural ¤ffet du trou insofar as they are placed en tour, made to 11 For an extended theorization of the literary text as vortex(t) see my »›Some Little Language Such as Lovers Use‹« (2001).

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turn by a drive traversing them, become flowers of rhetoric in a topological sense.12 Read with Freud and along the development of Lacan’s teaching, Jakobson’s thinking of poetic language as predicated on the occlusion of the Bedeutung alongside the foregrounding of quintessentially asemantic grammatical forms points, as Lacan suggests in his fourteenth seminar, towards a psychoanalytic literary theory whose emphasis with regard to the structure of the poetic text would be not only the hole of the Thing, the always particular lost object around which poetry turns as its cause, but even more so the forms of style as microstructural manifestations of this hole, which do not support sense, as Jakobson claims, but void it. In voiding sense, they call forth what it is possible to call forth of enjoyment. Such a psychoanalytic literary theory, however, has implications not only for the delineation of the structure of the poetic text but also for its interpretation. The analysand in an analytic session, Lacan says in his twenty-fifth seminar, makes poetry (1977 – 78, lesson of 20 December 1977). Sometimes. At those moments when the effort at conscious formulation makes something emerge from an Other scene or its unsayable beyond, something which makes the sense of conscious formulation leak. Or, more precisely, at those moments when the something from an Other scene or its beyond, whose I is that of the nonCartesian »I am not thinking« and which is always already on the same Moebian surface as the Cogito, is cut by the analyst. The cut of the analytic session troumatizes the analysand’s language precisely at the moment where it is already holed by what comes from elsewhere and objects to sense, just as do rhetorical forms in poetic language. The cut of the analytic session, which in Lacan’s late teaching becomes tantamount to analytic interpretation,13 aimed at the alteration of symptoms, is inspired by Lacan’s theorization of the holed structure of the poetic text itself. (Lacan 1977 – 78, lesson of 20 December 1977). To the extent an analytic interpretation is retroactively proven true, that is, affects the symptom, truth itself, Lacan says, »is defined as being poetic« (Lacan 1977 – 78, lesson of 20 December 1977). Analytic interpretation hence partakes of the writing of poetry, initiated by the punctuated moments of the analysand’s speech. Psychoanalysis itself becomes, for Lacan, coeval with poetry (1976 – 77, lesson of 15 March 1977); analytic work, as the title of one of Jacques-Alain Miller’s recent seminars indicates, is an effort for poetry.14 Precisely in the measure that it consists of subjecting sense, the source of neurotic suffering, to 12 For an extended theorization of rhetorical forms, »flowers of rhetoric« as topological, see my »Rhetorical Erotogenicity« (Sharon-Zisser 2009). 13 On the cut of the analytic session as the act of analytic interpretation par-excellence see Miller’s »Interpretation in Reverse« (1999). 14 Jacques-Alain Miller’s annual Lacanian orientation seminar at the University of Paris-VIII for the year 2002 – 2003 was entitled Un effort de po¤sie.

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an operation of voiding by the troumatismes of the analytic cut, the clinic’s equivalents for the micro-vortices constituted by the poetic text’s flowers of rhetoric. Analytic interpretation whose function is poetic hence diverges from hermeneutic procedures, whether in psychotherapy or in literary criticism, including deconstructive criticism. It does not add significations but subtracts them. And a literary theory that would be not only rigorously psychoanalytic, but as such, also truly poetic in its effort and its function? Performing a topological Aufhebung (emphasizing under erasure) the Jakobsonian principles of poetic language’s occlusion of the referent and the foregrounding of the asemantic grammar of poetry, it would read not for the sense of the semantic surface, poetry’s correlative of the analysand’s egoic speech, full of sense, knowing nothing of unconscious desire. Isolating the formal particularity of those purely asemantic rhetorical points of a literary text where the poetic function reaches its pitch of intensity, it would read these points awry : as proof not only of the text’s literariness but of its radical alterity to its author. A psychoanalytical literary theory would read rhetorical forms as troumatismes in vorticial, rotational flux which makes sense leak, enabling an anamorphotic glimpse of their particular function in the economy of an always opaque mode of enjoyment.

References: Atti¤, Jo (2006). »L’objet c’est la po¤tique,« in Scilicet du nom du pºre, Association Mondiale de la Psychanalyse. Derrida, Jacques (1976). Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Spivak, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Derrida, Jacques (1993) Aporias, trans. Thomas Dutoit, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Frege, Gottlob (1980) »On Sense and Reference,« in Geach, Peter, Max Black (eds and trans) Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, London: Blackwell, 23 – 42. Freud, Sigmund (2001) The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 1887 – 1939, 24 vols, trans. James Strachey, London: Vintage. Freud, Sigmund (1887 – 1902) Project for a Scientific Psychology, in Standard Edition 1: 281 – 388. Freud, Sigmund (1905d) Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, in Standard Edition 7: 123 – 244. Freud, Sigmund (1915c) »Instincts and their Vicissitudes,« in Standard Edition 14: 109 – 40. Freud, Sigmund (1919 h) »The Uncanny,« in Standard Edition 17: 219 – 53. Freud, Sigmund (1925 h) »Negation,« in Standard Edition 19: 235 – 40.

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Jakobson, Roman (1981) Selected Writings, 6 vols, ed. Stephen Rudy, The Hague: Mouton, 1981. Jakobson, Roman (1949 [1981]) »Language in Operation,« in Selected Writings 3: 7 – 17. Jakobson, Roman (1960 [1981]) »Linguistics and Poetics,« in Selected Writings 3: 18 – 51. Jakobson, Roman, (1961 [1981]) »Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry,« in Selected Writings 3: 87 – 97. Jakobson, Roman, (1970 [1981]) »Shakespeare’s Verbal Art in ›The Expense of Spirit,‹« in Selected Writings 3: 284 – 303. Kant, Immanuel (1999) Critique of Pure Reason, ed. Paul Guyer, trans. Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press. Lacan, Jacques (1993) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book 3: The Psychoses, trans. Russell Grigg, New York: Norton. Lacan, Jacques (1957 – 1958) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book 5: The Formations of the Unconscious, trans. Cormac Gallagher from unedited French typescripts, unpublished. Lacan, Jacques (2005) The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious, trans. Bruce Fink, New York: Norton. Lacan, Jacques (1958 – 1959) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book 6: Desire and its Interpretation, trans. Cormac Gallagher from unedited French typescripts, unpublished. Lacan, Jacques (1962 – 1963) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book 10: Anxiety, trans. Cormac Gallagher from unedited French typescripts, unpublished. Lacan, Jacques (1966 – 1967) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book 14: The Logic of Phantasy, trans. Cormac Gallagher from unedited French typescripts, unpublished. Lacan, Jacques (1967 – 1968) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book 15: The Psychoanalytic Act, trans. Cormac Gallagher from unedited French typescripts, unpublished. Lacan, Jacques (1968 – 1969) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book 16: from an Other to the other, trans. Cormac Gallagher from unedited French typescripts, unpublished. Lacan, Jacques (1976 – 1977) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book 24: L’insu que sait de l’une bevue s’aille ” mourre, trans. Dan Collins from unedited French typescripts, unpublished. Lacan, Jacques (1977 – 1978) Le S¤minaire de Jacques Lacan Livre 25: La topologie et le temps. Miller, Jacques-Alain (1999) »Interpretation in Reverse,« trans. Bogdan Wolf and Veronique Voruz, Psychoanalytical Notebooks of the London Circle 2: 9 – 18. Miller, Jacques-Alain (2002 – 2003) Un effort de po¤sie: Orientation lacanienne 2002 – 2003, Department of Psychoanalysis, University of Paris 8, (unpublished). Mukarˇovsky´, Jan (1964) »Standard Language and Poetic Language,« in Garvin, Paul L. (ed.) A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure and Style, Washington: Georgetown University University Press, 17 – 30. Saussure, Ferdinand de (1959) Course in General Linguistics, ed. Charles Bally et al., trans. Wade Baskin, New York: McGraw-Hill. Sharon-Zisser, Shirley (2000) The Risks of Simile in Renaissance Rhetoric, New York: Lang. Sharon-Zisser, Shirley (2001) »›Some Little Language Such as Lovers Use‹: Virginia Woolf ’s Elemental Erotics of Simile,« American Imago 58.2: 567 – 95. Sharon-Zisser, Shirley (2009) »Rhetorical Erotogenicity : Shakespeare’s Sonnets after Lacan’s Borromean Clinic,« Shakespeare Yearbook (forthcoming). Shklovsky, Viktor (1965) »Art as Technique,« in Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays,

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ed. and trans. Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reiss, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 3 – 24.

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M. Elizabeth Weiser

Ren¤ Wellek and Kenneth Burke: Prague Influences on the Birth of Modern Rhetoric

Ren¤ Wellek, in volume six of his compendium of modern literary criticism, wrote the following about Kenneth Burke, who was at the time nearing the very end of his 60-year career as a literary critic, semanticist, and theorist. Placing him among the New Critics, Wellek questioned his allegiance: »In [Burke’s] theory, literature becomes absorbed into a scheme of linguistic action or rhetoric so all-embracing and all-absorbing that poetry as an art is lost sight of [. . .]. Art perishes and one wonders what the grand drama is for« (1986, 255 – 56). Today, rhetoricians agree that Burke’s true allegiance was not to the New Criticism but instead to the New Rhetoric, the revival and expansion of rhetorical theory that has taken place in the U.S. from the mid-20th century and now numbers over 1,000 academic rhetoricians. While we often trace the beginnings of the New Rhetoric to the English critic I.A. Richards’ 1936 Bryn Mawr Lectures on The Philosophy of Rhetoric, and while other canonical »New Rhetoricians« would include such figures as Chicago narratologist Wayne Booth and PolishBelgian argument theorist Chaim Perelman, it is arguably Kenneth Burke who is today the best known, most influential, and most widely studied. His expansive theories on discourse analysis, collected in books spanning four decades but most elucidated in 1945’s A Grammar of Motives, 1950’s A Rhetoric of Motives, and 1966’s Language as Symbolic Action, are standard fare in American graduate schools. Burke’s philosophy of language as symbolic action in particular has become almost ubiquitous in the humanities and social sciences (Gusfield 1989, 2), and his influence on literary studies, rhetoric, and speech communications is even more pronounced. Postcolonial theorist Edward Said lamented in 1983 that »any reader of modern French criticism will be astounded to realize that Kenneth Burke, in whose huge output many of the issues and methods currently engaging the French were first discussed, is unknown,« but Burke is no longer unknown, and the ranks of Burke scholars continue to grow through the conferences and journals dedicated to his theories. While Burke wrote literary and social criticism throughout the 1930 s, it is his theory of dramatism, promulgated in his 1945 book A Grammar of Motives, that

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most scholars point to as the starting point for Burkean language studies. Dramatism was defined by Burke as »[the acknowledgement] that the most direct route to the study of human relations and human motives is via a methodological inquiry into cycles or clusters of terms and their functions« (1968, 445). Dramatism is an understanding of language as not a conveyor but a creator of meaning in human interaction with the world. The philosophy of dramatism thus assumes that »our words create orientations or attitudes, shaping our views of reality and thus generating different motives for our actions,« write Foss, Foss, and Trapp in their standard introduction to Burke’s thought (1991, 181). It »treats language and thought primarily as modes of action« (Burke 1945, xxii) – thus his well-known dictum, language is symbolic action. The methodology of dramatism, therefore, proposes to study human motivations through a close and synoptic examination of the words used to convey the chosen actions. It studies the interaction that these words produce between an act, an actor or agent, their scene, the tools used to produce the action, and the purpose for the action. Burke’s own purpose for dramatistic analysis he proposed as a means to transcend differences in a conflict-laden world by identifying deeply embedded points of linguistic commonality and then using these to move toward rhetorical action. Thus, Wellek’s critique of Burke – that after his early literary criticism, »his work in recent decades must rather be described as aiming at a philosophy of meaning, human behavior, and action whose center is not in literature at all« (1961, 109) – is a badge of honour to Burke scholars today. Yes, he did aim at human behaviour (although he never lost sight of what for him was the importance of literature to this aim). So Wellek’s supposed criticism is dismissed and his influence on Burke unexamined. It is this unexamined interaction and influence that I wish to address here, for Burke did care what Wellek thought of his work, and he did care that Wellek portray him accurately to Wellek’s audience of literary critics. Unlike most Burke scholars today, Burke thought of himself primarily as a literary critic and his work as expanding the importance of literature and criticism to the world, and, as I argue in my book Burke, War, Words, he strove from the beginning to make his methods understandable to and adoptable by other literary critics. An examination of Burke’s correspondence files reveals that he wrote regularly to people we would today call New Critics, neo-Aristotelians, general semanticists, and – in several cases – friends of Wellek’s.1 In 1950, Burke was asked informally to come to Princeton University and »help with Wellek« during Wellek’s guest lectures on the German literary critics. Burke, who read German well enough to be a regular translator of Thomas Mann, was considered to be the 1 Wellek’s private papers are still uncatalogued and thus unavailable for scholarly study.

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most knowledgeable scholar around on Wellek’s speciality, the history of Continental literary criticism. In 1949, the two of them presented papers at the New England regional meeting of the College English Association, in what was originally to have been a joint panel (Goldberg to Burke, 1 March 1949, 17 March 1949, Kenneth Burke Papers). While Wellek discussed the need to define which documents were literature and which were not in order to more critically compose a »literary history,« Burke discussed the possibility of defining literature as »symbolic action« – a type of rhetoric inducing change in the reader (»New England Meeting« 1949, 6 – 7). Both men, in other words, were positing a revised definition of literature in order to expand literary theory, and both were convinced that what Wellek called »formalistic, organistic, symbolistic aesthetics« tied to »a closer collaboration with linguistics and stylistics« (1961, 118) was the true path for the literary critic – although Burke would always add that the purpose for this analysis was a clearer understanding not only of literature but of the world. Burke and Wellek, in other words, should have been at least correspondents, if not friends. And yet, it seems they were not. Burke did not engage with Wellek’s work, and Wellek, the few times he addressed Burke’s work, was superficial or openly negative. In his 1949 book with Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, Wellek cited Burke’s work only as far as 1937, ignoring his two keys books from the 1940 s. Later, in a paragraph in »The Main Trends of Twentieth-Century Criticism« for the Yale Review, Wellek termed Burke a New Critic who combined »Marxism, psychoanalysis, and anthropology with semantics in order to devise a system of human behavior and motivation which uses literature only as a document or illustration« and whose method was »a baffling phantasmagoria of bloodless categories« (1961, 109). Perhaps unsurprisingly, this generated a vigorous, 16-page response from Burke to the editor of the journal. Wellek replied to him, labelling Burke a philosopher and adding, Nor do I contradict myself if I deplore the lack of collaboration between the New Critics and modern linguistics and still refuse to accept your specific philosophy of language. It seems to me that it has almost nothing in common with modern linguistics whether it be that of De Saussure’s, Trubetskoy’s, or Jakobson’s, or Hjemslev’s, or Devoto’s, or Spitzer’s, or even Bloomfield’s. (14 December 1961, Kenneth Burke Papers)

Burke’s drafted reply to this letter is equally disdainful: When critics start attacking one another along [the] lines [of being too abstract], it’s a good time to recall the proverb of the pot and the kettle [. . .] My slogan is: Better read one book ten times than ten books once. But while I am stumbling through one book once, your chosen task must require you to have raced competently

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through at least half a hundred [. . .] Under such conditions, as you indicate, sixteen pages of ›painsful‹ minutiae may be needed to correct the false impressions which your efficient generalizing method can pack into one short paragraph. (24 December 1961, Kenneth Burke Papers)

It seems most probable that this Christmas Eve response was never sent. Instead, two days later, Burke sent a short note commenting that he had decided not to add to his original 16-page response, since he seemed unlikely to change Wellek’s mind, and instead hoped only that when Wellek wrote of him again, he would contact Burke, who would be happy to help with his »bafflement,« as he »dared tell« himself that their problem was simply one of misunderstanding (26 December 1961, Kenneth Burke Papers). This is typical Burke: he always wanted to be understood – an irony given that he is considered the most obscure of modern rhetoricians – and he always thought, as he put it in a 1939 article, that »people, taken by and large, are acting reasonably enough, within their frame of reference« –and if they were not, then what they needed was »a still wider frame of reference« (rpt. 1941, 188) – that is, more information to widen their perspective. But when Wellek did write of Burke again, in a long essay on Burke for the Sewanee Review, he continued to be »baffled,« and Burke this time responded both at length and publicly in the Michigan Quarterly Review. Although both articles presented opposing textual interpretations, of greater concern to each was whether the other’s method was at all valid. Wellek mightily opposed Burke’s expansion of his theory of dramatism into realms outside of literature, and thus he attempted to describe only its effects on literary texts while ignoring both the implications and the conclusions drawn from studying the same terms used in philosophy, theology, science, etc. (1971, 172). Burke, meanwhile, felt that Wellek’s encyclopaedic and selective samplings of his literary analyses over the years were a »piecemeal, hit-and-run mode of reporting« (1972, 11). Both men, that is, felt that the other’s method could yield no true insights. Perhaps, as Burke wrote in that never-sent 1961 letter, »Our interests are so unlike, I do not dare hope to win your approval.« But I believe their interests were not so dissimilar ; that in fact Wellek and Burke were pursuing in many ways a similar project – the marriage of formal literary criticism with linguistics, the aesthetics of the New Criticism with the scientific understanding of general semantics, modern linguistics, and for Burke even the terministic orientations of the social sciences. It may be, in fact, that Burke was among those in the best position to grasp Wellek’s project, and Wellek was among those who should have been most sympathetic to Burke’s. And yet, they were not at all in synch, and their potential collaboration was instead lost in Burke’s ignoring of Wellek’s work and Wellek’s regular attacks on Burke.

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There is one point in time, however, that could have made things different – the point at which Burke and Wellek seemed most close together, early on in their respective careers in the United States. At the start of World War II, Wellek proposed a way of looking at literature that Burke appropriated, and expanded upon, and never, apparently, realized came from Wellek’s first major article in an American journal. This is the way in which Wellek played a role in influencing the direction of modern American rhetoric, the New Rhetoric.2 When the war broke out in Europe, Wellek came from England to the University of Iowa. He had just published The Rise of English Literary History, and the first time he could bring the topic widely to a target audience of American literary scholars and critics was his 1942 article in that bastion of the New Criticism, the Southern Review. In »The Mode of Existence of a Literary Work of Art,« Wellek took on the prevailing dichotomies of the literary critics of his day. New Critics (Ransom, Tate, Brooks) and neo-Aristotelians (Crane, Daiches) were focused on the intrinsic (and therefore timeless) nature of a poem – the poem in itself. They were reacting to both the previous generation of literary scholars, who ignored form for biography and context, and the Marxist critics, who argued instead for attention to the poem’s message. Both scholars and Marxists, in other words, were focused on the extrinsic, or time-bound, nature of the poem – either in its original setting or in its message for the contemporary world. Wellek argued for a third way – what Burke always called a »falling on the bias« position that incorporated the best of two seemingly dichotomous perspectives into an ironic unity. »A real poem,« wrote Wellek, »must be conceived as a system of norms« which it was the readers’ (and critics’) job to »extract« from each poem, such that all the norms together would make up not one, idealized superior norm, but a system of norms, or values, »realized only partially in the actual experience of its many readers« (1942, 745 – 46). The method by which the critic-reader could grasp these norms, Wellek said, was through the phonemics explored by the Prague Linguistic Circle, such that ever-widening

2 I am not suggesting here that there is proof that Burke used Wellek’s early work to formulate his rhetorical theory in the Grammar of Motives. It is known that Burke read at least the Southern Review, if not Wellek’s other work. It is also known that a year after Wellek’s article appeared in the Review, with its conclusion that a mode of existence for literature was both timeless and timebound, Burke described a similar eternal/historical condition for poetry when he tried to explain the difference between his methodology and purely intrinsic criticism. It is also known that this article of Burke’s formed a solid kernel of his work in the Grammar and subsequent rhetorical theories, although neither man seems to have recognized the similarities in their projects. I am, therefore, recapturing a connection that perhaps Burke and certainly Wellek would disavow. More likely, Burke would embrace it – his rhetorical project was always expansive – and Wellek, whose focus remained committed to literary theory, would dismiss it as irrelevant.

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circles of structures – sound units to sentence patterns to genres – could be carefully teased out for analysis. While not new to anyone in the Prague Circle, this was new to the U.S. at that time, and Wellek’s efforts to bring the insights of the Prague Circle to the field of linguistics eventually helped to change the field dramatically, just as his knowledge of Continental literary history helped to jumpstart the American interest in European theory. However, there is one other point Wellek makes, at the very end of his 1942 article, which influenced as well that other field, modern rhetoric. What, Wellek asks, after defining what a poem is not and how to figure out what it could be, is the »actual mode of existence« of a poem? Between the »Charybdis of Platonism and the Scylla of extreme nominalism« there is a work which is neither »an empirical fact […] of any individual or group,« nor »an ideal changeless object.« It is accessible only though individual experience, but it is not identical with any experience« (752). It is historical: »It was created at a certain point in time and [. . .] is subject to change and even complete destruction« (751). Wellek was, of course, countering the widespread influence in America of T.S. Eliot, who argued that literature has a simultaneous existence in all eras. Wellek disagreed. Literature was not timeless, nor yet was it entirely bound to the time and place of its authorship, as the literary scholars would have it. Each work was instead »a system of [implicit] norms [. . .] which have to be extracted from every individual experience of a work of art and together make up the genuine work of art as a whole« (745 – 46). Thus, a poem was both »time-bound« – created at a particular moment and made concrete each time it was read/enacted – and »timeless« – endowed with »some fundamental structure of identity since its creation,« such that, for all its changes through the centuries, we still call the Odyssey, Odyssey (752). As a scholar of literary history, Wellek necessarily believed that literature does have a history. As he had put it in a book chapter the year before, it is not eternally, simultaneously present, even if there is a distinction between that which is historical and past and that which is historical and still somehow present [. . .] Yet this does not exclude the possibility that there is a real history which is more than a mirror of the social changes under which literature was produced in the past [. . .] To speak of »eternity« is merely an expression of the fact that the process of interpretation, criticism, and appreciation [the subjects of literary history] has never been completely interrupted and is likely to continue indefinitely. (1941a, 120)

And Kenneth Burke agreed with him. Burke had spent most of the 1930 s trying to argue for his own bias-falling position that transcended the time-bound

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criticism of the Marxist message-hunters and the timeless criticism of the aesthetic formalists. Literature was timelessly historical, he insisted – and here was a new European critic agreeing with him, stating it in a new way. Although Wellek is uncredited, Burke seems to have picked up his argument the following year in an article in Accent entitled »The Problem of the ›Intrinsic,‹« in which he noted that his new methodology – what would become dramatism – examined a poem’s extrinsic qualities, as an object created by an author in a particular historical scene, as well as its intrinsic qualities, as a timeless statement. NeoAristotelian critics like R. S. Crane, he said, give critics the choice of poem as exemplar or poem as object. But what if poem were considered as act? This would not slight the nature of the poem as object. For a poem is a constitutive act – and after the act of its composition by a poet who had acted in a particular temporal scene, it survives as an objective structure, capable of being examined in itself, in temporal scenes quite different from the scene of its composition, and by agents quite different from the agent who originally enacted it. (Burke 1943, 93)

By considering the poem as an act, not an artifact, a kind of living record, Burke’s dramatism would enable the examination of a poem’s intrinsic and extrinsic features, its eternal and temporal elements. Both Burke and Wellek believed that, in Wellek’s terms, a »system of language« was not a fiction but a real thing, even if empirically immeasurable (1942, 751). As Burke would put it as he argued for dramatism in the first chapter of his A Grammar of Motives, even if one denied all action that was not measurable, the words describing the action were still there: »these words of nonsense would themselves be real words, involving real tactics, having real demonstrable relationships, and demonstrably affecting relationships« (1945, 57 – 58). For Wellek in the early 1940 s, it was enough to note that »we recognize some structure of norms within reality and do not simply invent verbal constructs« (1942, 751), such that the role of the literary critic was to critique in comparison to what s/he knew of the norms more generally. For Burke the budding rhetorical philosopher, the reality of words meant a »rhetorical realism« (Wess 1996) such that, just as sociologists might study human social interactions to determine motivation, wordsmiths needed to study human verbal interactions. If they »measured« the words used against certain norms, as did literary critics, then they would better understand human motivations. However, the measurement apparatus would have to be as ambiguous and linguistic as the words themselves – his dramatistic methodology, »a synoptic way [for humans] to talk about their talk-about« (Burke 1945, 56).

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If Wellek did contribute to Burke’s dramatistic theory the first articulation of the timeless and time-bound duality of literature in a real system of language, Wellek’s insight is important to modern rhetoric for several reasons. First, it gave Burke the terms to frame a rationale for his insistence that purely intrinsic criticism was impossible – that a poem was not a timeless entity that one could study inductively, as R.S. Crane wanted, »apart from any a priori assumptions about the nature of poetry in general« (1943, 86). The »inductions« one came to in such a study were necessarily deduced from the nature of the language or terminology employed. Yet any particular work of art was also more than a product of its history. As one of the circle of New Critics, Burke reacted as strongly as did William Empson or John Crowe Ransom against the purely extrinsic historical/biographical scholarship of his past. Yet unlike them, he did not want to abandon the insights into present-day audience awareness that the Marxist critics brought – that sense, as Wellek articulated it, that the system of norms was »realized only partially in the actual experience of its many readers.« Wellek, then, with his discussion of time-bound/timeless poems and intrinsic/generalizable norms, gave Burke the key to discussing the poem in both its intrinsic and extrinsic forms. The poem is a constitutive act, said Burke, and therefore never a static thing – it was always moving through time, falling on the bias between the stasis of the eternal and the frozenness of a particular historical moment. Wellek was making a similar point in his insistence that a poem is a system, a set of interacting norms that can be »extracted from every individual experience of a work of art« (1942, 745) yet do not abstract into universal timeless entities, for the norms arise from history and also determine future norms/values (1941a, 125). What Wellek never understood was Burke’s insistence that this interacting system was itself an act, a verb rather than a noun. For Burke this focus on an act interacting with history – what he would call the act/scene ratio – would become the central tenet of his emerging dramatistic theory. It was a more rhetorical, more pragmatic understanding of the act/scene interaction than Wellek was willing to accept. As Wess puts it, Burke’s constitutive act developed between the extremes of Enlightenment science and Romantic aesthetics: In the old paradigm, subject and object interact, the interaction produces a discourse, and enlightenment or romantic criteria determine whether to place trust in the discourse. In the new, trust is placed in the interaction among discourses more than in single discourses, the basis of the trust being neither enlightenment certainty nor romantic authenticity but rhetorical sayability. (Wess 1996, 4)

This focus on the interaction among discourses, the ongoing debate, would

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expand for Burke throughout the war years into what he came to see as the necessary response to the monologue of fascism. Rather than the certainty of the single voice speaking for all, there was the celebration of the »wrangle of the parliament,« where the conflicting interests of various groups are teased out of various real, material interests and set one against the other to come to some asyet-undetermined plan of action (rpt. 1941, 200). In such a »wrangle,« it would be easy to envision the abandonment of norms for the free-for-all of relativism, as all interests debated equally. Here again, Wellek’s insistence on the nonuniversal but still normative »system« of literature may well have helped Burke to concretize his ideas as he sought to explain a non-relativistic celebration of multiple perspectives. »The system of norms is growing and changing and will remain, in some sense, always incompletely and imperfectly realized,« Wellek wrote (1942, 753). But this did not mean that all readings were equal. »A hierarchy of viewpoints, a criticism of the grasp of norms is implied in the concept of the adequacy of interpretation. All relativism is ultimately defeated by the recognition that the Absolute is in the relative, though not finally and fully in it« (753). The hierarchy of interacting viewpoints was to become Burke’s climactic anecdote in the Grammar of Motives, the summing up of his ideas. Examining the U.S. Constitution as constitutive act – a document which has remained normative, eternally timeless, even as it is historicized through continual reinterpretation by the Supreme Court – Burke wrote that debates over the interpretation of the Constitution have historically swung between strict textual and broader contextual interpretations, but to cut across this on the bias [. . .] would require a more complex procedure, as the Court would test [a newly desired] measure by reference to all the wishes in the Constitution [. . . with] explicit reference to a hierarchy among the disjunct wishes. (1945, 380)

The norms of the Constitution would remain constant, but their relative importance would shift depending upon the historical moment, while this resultant new hierarchy of actions would always be judged against the eternal norms of the body as a whole. Such an understanding of hierarchies and norms could in turn be applied to the »wrangle« of parliamentary debate of any kind. For Burke this was an acknowledgement that the choices one necessarily makes are ironic, in that they are composed of many potential choices, each of which, even the most seemingly antagonistic, is constituted by language. Each hierarchy of choices, in turn, each system of norms, contributes something to the »certainty« of the (symbolic) action that is chosen. This final emphasis on language as act, as necessary choice for action in the

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world, which was so vitally important to Burke as he wrote during the War years, may not have gained much understanding or sympathy from Wellek’s pure literary critic – but perhaps the Prague Linguistic Circle itself at the time would have been more favorable to Burke’s point. After all, as Josef Vachek points out in his history of the Circle, it labelled itself both structural and functionalist, thus arguing »that any item of language (sentence, word, morpheme, phoneme, etc.) exists solely because it serves some purpose, because it has some function (mostly that of communication) to fulfill« (1966, 6 – 7). For the Prague Circle, »language is not a self-contained reality, but, in fact, its main function is to react to and refer to this reality« (Vachek 1966, 7). That is, as Burke wrote in a key essay, language, as symbolic action, as expressed in literature, is a system of strategic, stylized »answers to questions posed by the situation in which they arose« (1941, 1). As an act, language functioned to serve a communicative purpose in the world. Wellek may have perhaps wished to keep linguistic analysis in the realm of the literary, but he was right about Burke: like the Prague Circle itself, Burke had a larger agenda. With this chapter, therefore, I would like to acknowledge the undoubtedly unintentional debt that modern rhetoric owes to Ren¤ Wellek. Wellek’s early distinction of art as timelessly historical allows us to consider not only literature but also such »word hierarchies« as theories themselves, as acts that are at once both context-driven and universally applicable. What I call in my work »rhetoricizing« theory contextualizes a theory’s origins not merely to understand its time-bound nature but also to allow it to more richly inform its timeless, universal applications – to more fully grasp the Absolute in the relative, as Wellek put it. It is this understanding, I believe, that was brought to modern rhetoric in a 1942 article by a newly immigrated scholar on the mode of existence of a literary work of art.

References: Burke, Kenneth (1941) The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press; 3rd rev. edn, Berkeley : University of California Press, 1973. Burke, Kenneth (1943) »The Problem of the Intrinsic,« in Accent, 3: 80 – 94. Burke, Kenneth (1945) A Grammar of Motives, New York: Prentice-Hall; Berkeley : University of California Press. Burke, Kenneth (1968) »Dramatism,« in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York: Macmillan, 7: 445 – 52. Burke, Kenneth (1972) »As I Was Saying,« Michigan Quarterly Review, 11: 9 – 27. Foss, Sonja K., Karen A. Foss, Robert Trapp (1991) Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric, 2nd ed., Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 169 – 208.

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Gusfield, Joseph R., Kenneth Burke (1989) On Symbols and Society, University of Chicago Press. Kenneth Burke Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Special Collections Library, The Pennsylvania State University. »New England Meeting« (1949) CEA Critic, 11.6: 6 – 7. Said, Edward (1983) The World, the Text, and the Critic, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vachek, Josef (1966) The Linguistic School of Prague, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Wellek, Ren¤ (1941a) »Literary History,« in Literary Scholarship: Its Aims and Methods, ed. Norman Foerster et al., Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 89 – 130. Wellek, Ren¤ (1941b) The Rise of English Literary History, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Wellek, Ren¤ (1942) »The Mode of Existence of a Literary Work of Art,« Southern Review, 7: 735 – 54. Wellek, Ren¤ (1961) »The Main Trends of Twentieth-Century Criticism,« Yale Review, 51.1: 102 – 18. Wellek, Ren¤ (1971) »Kenneth Burke and Literary Criticism,« Sewanee Review, 79: 171 – 188. Wellek, Ren¤ (1986) A History of Modern Criticism: 1750 – 1950, vol. 6, New Haven: Yale University Press. Weiser, Elizabeth (2008) Burke, War, Words, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Wess, Robert (1996) Kenneth Burke: Rhetoric, Subjectivity, Postmodernism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Lawrence K. Stanley

Structural Transformation: Short-story Narratives and the Significance of Degree Zero

In »How Do We Recognize Structuralism?« Gilles Deleuze defines the »empty square« or »degree zero« as that which lacks its own identity or meaning and upon which structuralism depends. This designation occurs after a string of short sections that play off (»juxtapose a system of echoes«) Lacan and Foucault and J.-A. Miller and Frege and others and lead to Jakobson’s basic metaphor/ metonymy structure and his denotation of a »zero phoneme which does not by itself entail any differential character or phonetic value, but in relation to which all the phonemes are situated in their own differential relations« (Deleuze 2004,186). It is this sense of degree zero as something »missing from its place« that gives structure its transformational capacity to generate, out of two other terms or meanings, a third term or meaning of another order than the one out of which it is generated, which in turn suggests ways of looking at the generation of short stories. The simplest instance of degree zero is the phoneme, a distinct sound without significance until combined with other sounds to form signifying words. The simplest analogy is with games; to have a game you have to have movement and to have movement there must be an empty space. Most important is this sense of missing from its place: something draws into this space; it hints at a structurallyeffected energy. The metaphoric axis, as Roland Barthes describes it, is »a vertical project [. . .] which plunges into a totality of meanings, reflexes and recollections,« »a sort of existential geology,« wherein any word »live[s] without its article—and is reduced to a sort of degree zero« (1970, 47 – 48). The totality of meanings along the metaphoric axis saturates a word so thoroughly that it belongs to nothing, is itself no-thing and yet everything, the degree-zero potential of that which has no identifying article (that is, not an apple or the apple or your apple or my apple, but just apple). While a word’s denotative meaning can be defined, as long as it remains on the metaphoric axis its meaning can only be immanent. This is the semantic degree zero. The metonymic axis structures language syntactically, is the empty space

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defined minimally as noun phrase (NP) plus verb phrase (VP) whose logic, Barthes notes, is »unconscious« (1977, 141), an unconscious presumably at work whenever we speak or write, an unpremeditated sense of what goes where so that we do not have to think about the syntax we use when we speak a sentence. »The elements of a structure,« Deleuze further notes, »have neither extrinsic designation, nor intrinsic signification [. . . are] a matter [. . .] of places and sites in a properly structural space, that is, a topological space« (2004, 173 – 74). This is metonymic or syntactic degree zero. One significance of degree zero has been described by Roman Jakobson: a speaker or user of language stuck in one of the two axes suffers from aphasia and can at best make only meaningless noises. Another significance has been identified by Deleuze: we need those empty spaces in order to move, to function, to perform, to signify, to write. Two degree zeros have to be brought together and combined in order to have meaning or significance. As Deleuze observes, »if the symbolic elements have no extrinsic designation nor intrinsic signification, but only a positional sense, it follows necessarily and by rights that sense always results from the combination of elements which are not themselves signifying« (2004,175). Roman Jakobson’s definition of the poetic function (»The poetic function projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination« [1960, 358]) provides a geometric image within which to perceive where the third term, itself still (nearly) an empty square, the space where the two axes intersect, the point where nothing yet has quite happened, a point so infinitesimal that it nearly does not exist, is pure potential, is the pivotal point whose hinge makes possible the movement of projection. This hinge is the connective that constitutes symbolic form, »a form with no antecedents« and yet »is also a Value« (Barthes 1970, 13). The metaphoric projects; that is, it throws forward and extends. »Project« intimates design; design intimates intention: not authorial but structural intention. Structural intention—this generative shape-force—intimates movement rather than a static state, movement perhaps of the sort that Chomsky’s notion of »deep structure« identifies: the perpetual movement of the mind ceaselessly forming; perhaps of the sort that Freud narrated: »thought proceeds in systems that are so remote from the original residues of perception that they have no longer retained anything of the qualities of these residues, so that in order to become conscious the content of the thought-systems needs to be reinforced by new qualities« (1959, 134 – 35). The sense of projecting pushes us a bit closer to grasping the empirically invisible force or energy hinted at by »missing from its place.« Something wants to happen. When thrown into the metonymic axis, the metaphoric becomes a function: being becomes doing. Metaphorically saturated words fit in between cardinal functions (the essential narrative actions, as Barthes describes them) to become

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Structural Transformation: Short-story Narratives and the Significance of Degree Zero 307

interpretative catalysers. They clarify and intensify meaning without pushing the narrative forward; they alter narrative pacing and in doing so make their own non-semantic non-syntactic meaning. A metaphoric consciousness, by being projected into the metonymic unconscious, does not merely fill in but becomes the motive and the meaning of the narrative. But the metaphoric is not obliterated by this projection; it continues to echo and to retain its de-articled potential in part by the empty spaces left by choosing this word rather than any of the others. Given the possibility of structural intention, structural inquiry can help identify and examine two things: knowing and intention. The short story offers a particular experience. It does not have the physical space or the latitude of the novel to expand into the classical beginning-middleend form; rather, it has an intensified immediacy akin to the consciousness of a dream. Its brevity brings it close to the metaphoric, close to something just barely projected into or registering on the metonymic. Its metaphoric-like brevity has that »excess of sense« which borders on the line between sense and nonsense (as, for instance, in dreams), a complication that offers ways of reading what is »not recognizable or identifiable,« structures wherein the slippage between two correlative things (word and object, character and place, character and character) can happen yet without complete loss of reference or determination. I have chosen, as a way to localize this inquiry, a short story composed by Eudora Welty right after she heard the news of the assassination of black civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963. I have chosen this primarily for the proximity between the writer’s knowledge of a specific event and her response to that knowledge. Because the story—»Where Is the Voice Coming From?«—approaches its subject from the perspective of the assassin, the first person singular, it intensifies the complexities of the transformation from personal emotional response to a story that will stand on its own. The text is short, accessible, sympathetic (even though Welty was quite unsympathetic with the assassin). Little was known about what happened when Welty heard about the assassination: only that Evers had been shot as he got out of his car late at night and that the assassin had left behind the rifle. Yet such minimal information triggered something greater than a simple response from her : I thought, [Welty later recalls] with overwhelming directness: Whoever the murderer is, I know him: not his identity, but his coming about, in this time and place. That is, I ought to have learned by now, from here, what such a man, intent on such a deed, had going on in his mind. I wrote his story—my fiction—in the first person: about that character’s point of view, I felt, through my shock and revolt, I could make no mistake. (Welty 1980, xi)

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Welty begins with having something to say, with the knowledge not only of her response but also of the culture out of which the assassin had arisen. Her comments reveal how fiction attaches articles to words (his story, my fiction) as the narrator-writer metamorphoses out of her knowing response to the actual assassin and into a fictional narration of character. In her fiction, her short story, the assassin’s metaphorically-compressed racial hatred, a nearly inarticulate rage against civil rights movements, is projected over and into the metonymic. Thus projected, his compressed outraged hatred transforms into an extended narrative of struggle, of one man pitting his physical strength against a political and social force. At the very beginning of the story, the assassin says: I says to my wife, »you can reach and turn it off. You don’t have to set and look at a black nigger face no longer than you want to, or listen to what you don’t want to hear. It’s still a free country.« (Welty 1980, 603)

His statement explicitly identifies what motivates the character to act; as he says: »I reckon that’s how I give myself the idea.« The idea is the character’s need (akin to the actual assassin’s) to strike a blow, which is satisfied not directly but indirectly : a bullet projected from a rifle into the back of his unwitting opponent. The implicit cowardice undermines any possibility of the heroic, but the effect is certain; the assassin has displaced his opponent and he has now fulfilled the expectation of the story’s opening: his wife does not have to look at or listen to what she does not want to look at or listen to (crucial, by the way, that his wife does not see him as hero: thus the character’s need for this narrative). On the one hand, fiction works the metonymic degree zero that the actual assassin did not have, so here his rage reforms into verbal narrative; on the other hand, graphing the narrative with Greimas’s actants reveals its illogical nature—the way it breaks up and justifies itself against itself and finally dissipates in the end into a repetitive near-nonsense song—an echo of the song that Ophelia sings in Hamlet—which he sings while playing his guitar. In a sense the real assassin is aphasic: his rage is compressed into »black« or »race« or »rights« and he knows no degree zero or empty space into which he can move and hence assumes that only by executing this man will he gain that space. Welty, in turn, both seizes upon his aphasia and sustains it but also finds within fiction a sufficient degree zero to articulate the story of »such a man« which extends beyond the singular actual individual through the range of the metaphoric and generates thereby something greater either than one man’s rage at black civil rights movements or her rage at his actions. The story’s title—»Where Is the Voice Coming From?«—suggests uncertainty about the very »confusion between consecution and consequence,«

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Structural Transformation: Short-story Narratives and the Significance of Degree Zero 309

between then and then because, that Barthes identified as »the central problem of narrative syntax« (1977, 98). This uncertainty is dramatized by the choice of first-person; narrated by someone other than the real assassin but as if the real assassin, the fiction collapses distinctions among »his story/my fiction/first person.« »Characters can only exist,« Deleuze and Guattari argue, »and the author can only create them, because they do not perceive but have passed into the landscape and are themselves part of the compound of sensations« (1994, 169), a claim that uncannily fits what happens in Welty’s story : her intention to write the story of this assassin’s »coming about, in this [. . .] place.« The character and the place of his coming about become coincidental and indeterminate. And this is further dramatized when, just after watching his victim get out of his car and just before he fires the fatal shot, the character recalls I knowed who was coming [. . .] I knowed it when he cut off the car lights and put his foot out and I knowed him standing dark against the light. I knowed him then as I know me now, I knowed him even by his still, listening back. (Welty 1980, 604)

The victim and the assassin are no longer determinate; he knows him as he knows himself, and the two become metaphorically coincidental, just as had character and landscape. And here we get yet another metaphoric identification: Welty’s claim to know the actual assassin’s »coming about« and the character’s claim to know his victim »as I know me now.« Art must wrest the affect from affection, the percept from perception, Deleuze and Guattari argue in What is Philosophy? Art might arise out of personal experience and consciousness; however, it should not attempt to represent memories of experience but rather work »the percept or affect of the material itself,« the »complex material that is found not in memory but in words and sounds« (1994, 166, 168). At some unpredictable point, material »pass[es] completely into the sensation« (167) which then is immediate in the material that shapes and is shaped, emerging and transforming out of actual experience into material form where lines blur and identities become indeterminate. What kind of cognition is this, as sensation passes into material and material into sensation? What intervention has happened and how can it be traced or imaged through structural inquiry? How does the short story work so that the writer slips across real barriers to make something intelligible (in this instance, how such a real person could come about in this place) without explaining it? Behind this argument is Deleuze’s argument in »How Do We Recognize Structuralism?« In addressing that question, Deleuze postulates that even phonemes »reciprocally determine each other« (2004, 176). To get at the nature of this reciprocity, he differentiates three types of mathematical-like relations:

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the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic. The real is arithmetic; its values are specified (he illustrates this with 2 + 3 = 5). The imaginary is algebraic; its values are not specified but are determined (he illustrates this with x2 + y2 – R2 = 0). The symbolic is like differential calculus; its values are neither specified nor determined (he illustrates this with ydy + xdx = 0). In the symbolic, all relations are determined reciprocally ; they have no existence, no value, no significance on their own. Here we find the »pure logic of relations« (2004, 176) and a way to understand how »structure constitutes the principle of genesis« (172) and how it is possible for it to be the »substratum both for a strata of the real and for the heights of the imagination« (172). Structure can »account both for the formation of wholes and for the variation of their parts,« (173) most exactly when we sense the various symbolic-reciprocal relations. To be reciprocal, there must be a back and forth or give and take motion, a correspondence among identifiable chunks that compels forth a new form whose motive exceeds a mere willful working of words. Within the recripocal, we feel the constant potential of cognitive undertow. Within the energies of this undertow, we form constellations out of raw material; we constellate material into significant shapes and cognitive coherences whose meaning is contextual, made up of metamorphoses and not single discrete morphologies. And complex meanings are made up of complex metamorphoses, connected morphologies, out of semantic and phonological and structural possibilities. The enigma of the aesthetic individual labor of forming a significant object out of the unsettlingness of the unexamined and unworked, when traced out by structural analysis, unveils what has probably always been the writer’s cognitive situation. Analysis that reveals the reciprocal relations of symbolic structure allows us to follow as far as possible the dynamic interplay of identifiable and discrete elements and to see where perception transforms into percept, affection into affect, where writing »makes the standard language stammer, tremble, cry, or even sing [. . .] ›not to reproduce but to distance the past‹« (Deleuze, Guattari 1994, 176). The metaphoric word saturated with other words constellating around it has the essence of symbolic-reciprocal relation manifest in its de-articled form. Once in the metonymic, the word does not lose its de-articled sense completely, but retains it by merit of the symbolic-reciprocal relation between the metaphoric and metonymic axes, as well as by the absence of metaphorically-related but unchosen words. We recognize the structural roots of the indeterminacy in the blurred his story/my fiction difference or the statement »I knowed him then as I know me now« and we re-cognize it as the symbolic-reciprocal relation between the materials of art and the consciousness of the artist. For degree zero pervades immediate and constructed consciousness and unconsciousness; the act of fictionalizing is an infrastructural interpretation that seeks out the degree

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zero that makes possible differential movement within the structure, and from which it participates in symbolic-reciprocal transformations and by which it becomes liberated from the individual and local. Structural paradigms determine what moves we can make within zero degree spaces and what moves are significant within the game-rules of language and what counts as meaningful statement. Formal structural analysis maps out the transformations we make from langue to parole, but not why, not the motive; it makes intelligible the tensed or tensional energies within reciprocal relations of the symbolic, out of which generation is always immanent, but also the possibility of intention within the reciprocity of the structural, and it offers a way to identify the permeability of structures which in turn makes possible a co-performance of structural intention and authorial intention and realizes the pervasive significance of degree zero as the space necessary for transformation.

References: Barthes, Roland (1970) Writing Degree Zero and Elements of Semiology, trans. Annette Lavers and Colin Smith, Boston: Beacon. Barthes, Roland (1977) »Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives,« ImageMusic-Text, trans. Stephen Heath, New York: Hill and Wang. Deleuze, Gilles, F¤lix Guattari (1994) What Is Philosophy? trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell, New York: Columbia University Press Deleuze, Gilles (2004) »How Do We Recognize Structuralism?« in Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953 – 1974, ed. David Lapoujade, trans. Michael Taormina, Los Angeles; New York: Semiotext(e) Freud, Sigmund (1959) »The Unconscious,« in Collected Papers IV, trans. Cecil M. Baines, ed. Joan Riviere, New York: Basic Books, 98 – 136. Jakobson, Roman (1960) »Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics,« in Style in Language, ed. T. A Sebeok, New York: Wiley, 350 – 377. Welty, Eudora (1980) »Where Is the Voice Coming From?« in Collected Stories, New York; London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 603 – 609.

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James W. Underhill

Structure and Reconstruction: Jirˇ„ Levy´ and the Translation of Poems

The Prague School The debt linguistics owes to the Prague School hardly needs to be stressed. Some will have in mind Trubetzkoy’s contribution to phonetics; his idea that the words of a language are differentiated by oppositions between phonemes, and that the phonemes themselves are kept apart by their distinctive features. Others will be thinking of the importance of the concept of foregrounding, a word which translates Mukarˇovsky´’s Czech term aktualizace, and which is used in contemporary stylistics to designate the way certain aspects of the formal and semantic elements of a text are highlighted in dynamic relation to one another. But whatever they have inherited from the Prague School, few linguists would contest that the twenties and the thirties were a period of great intellectual, poetic, cultural and scientific effervescence in Prague, and linguists have often sought inspiration in that generation of linguistics which witnessed the encounter between French and Swiss Saussurean linguistics and pan-Slavic approaches to language, literature and culture. It was no doubt that effervescence which incited Martin Prochzka and Jan ˇ Cermk of Charles University, Prague, to devote the 2007 conference of the Czech Association for the Study of English (CZASE) to »The Prague School and Theories of Structure«. And it was no doubt that same effervescence which tempted scholars from New Zealand, Britain and North America as well as from France, Switzerland and Germany to join together with their East European colleagues to reflect upon the contribution made by the Prague school’s ideas and conceptual tools to the study of language and literature today. What tends to be forgotten, however, (no doubt because few scholars outside the Czech Republic master the Czech language) is that the Prague school was Czech. Mukarˇovsky´ was writing for Czechs about the Czech language and its literature. The energy of the Czech revival with its »classico-romantic« nineteenth century poets, Erben and Mcha, the rebirth of the Czech nation in 1918 and the remarkable growth in Czech studies were all part of one startlingly

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complex adventure, the great thrust forward of a people defining themselves and celebrating their culture. And part of that celebration involved retracing the roots Czech culture shared with its Slavic »brother-languages«. Like all social and cultural phenomena, the political dimension of this movement was fundamental. That this political aspect of the Prague School was soon marginalized or forgotten is hardly surprising. Notwithstanding discourse analysis and work on the relationship between ideology and language, linguistics has all too often steered clear of the political implications of language, and linguists have often been seduced by the ideal of linguistics as a science – a formal science – which induces many to blinker their eyes to the social roots of language and the implications for society of discourse and language change. Perhaps this is the crucial difference between many contemporary linguists and the great linguists of the Prague School. When the Prague School chose to restrict their research to formal questions, they remained aware of the greater social, historical, political and cultural significance of their research. Though the Prague School inherited much from philologists like Propp, Shklovsky and Tynyanov who belonged to what came to be called the »Russian Formalist School«, neither those scholars nor the Prague School scholars were »formalists« in the strict sense of the term: they did not live within the intellectual compartments, the departments and disciplines, within which the contemporary university encourages us to confine ourselves today. Reaching into thirteenth-century Czech poems, Jakobson and Mukarˇovsky´ were hoping to unveil something essential about the very structure of Czech verse. But since they were working within the framework of a comparative school, they believed that what they found in ancient Czech verse could help explain the way linguistic elements form themselves into harmonious forms of organisation in other languages. The specific aspect or element of language always remained specific in the Prague School, socially, culturally and historically situated: it was never reduced to the mere means, the physical go-between, which would open up access to a universal conception of language. In this way, their work was highly distinct from generative metrics which studies the structure of English verse, and then hopes to perceive the structure of other languages using universal paradigms. When Jakobson and Mukarˇovsky´ reached towards a wider conception of the way harmony functions in language, they did not lose sight of the distinct ways harmony functions within both individual expression and in individual languages. Without knowing Czech, it is of course impossible to grasp the significance of the study of accents and syllables for elucidating the way Czech verse distances itself from what might loosely be termed »ordinary speech« in that language, and it would be absurd to criticise French- and English-speakers for not knowing Czech. It is, nevertheless, important to stress that what western scholars have

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taken from the Prague School does not wholly coincide with what the School’s scholars were offering in that great period of vibrant research. To put it bluntly, we have pillaged what we could, and left what we found impossible to grasp and use. This has led to a rather skewed view of the Prague School, a view which is reinforced by the selective reading and citation of a rather limited number of key texts. This is not the place to go into a critique of the Prague School’s inheritance, but it should be pointed out that three general trends have greatly influenced the extent of the influence of the Prague School internationally speaking. Firstly, the Prague School has tended to be represented as a linguistic school rather than a philological school and the writings of the various authors who have been gathered under that umbrella term have consequently tended to be used as a source of formal rather than cultural concepts. This is no doubt reinforced by the second trend which consisted in making Jakobson the main exponent of the Prague School. This can, no doubt, be attributed to the fact that Jakobson asserted himself internationally, the poetician, Mukarˇovsky´, did not (or not until much later). And when Mukarˇovsky´ did gain some recognition in English-speaking nations, it was invariably only thanks to a few key essays, notably On Poetic Language, published in 1976. In France, the work of the Prague School was published in 1966 in an edition edited by Josef Vachek (Travaux linguistiques de Prague: l’¤cole de Prague aujourd’hui) containing texts in French, English, German and Russian; nevertheless, the texts all focused upon linguistic questions and the poetics of the Prague school went totally unrepresented. It was not until Jacqueline Fontaine published Le Cercle linguistique de Prague in 1974, that Mukarˇovsky´ gained some small degree of recognition in France: Fontaine stressed the importance of the study of poetry and poetics in the founding theses agreed upon by the four members of the Prague Circle committee (Mathesius, Jakobson, Mukarˇovsky´ and Trnka). She also devoted a chapter of her book to a comparison of the poetics of Jakobson and Mukarˇovsky´ (135 – 146). Thirdly, though our debt to the Prague School is not in doubt, a cursory glance at the shelves of university libraries in Britain and France confirm the fact that our Prague schools are very different. The French Jakobson introduced by Nicolas Ruwet is not the Jakobson of The Selected Writings, a monumental oeuvre which preserves the Jakobson who wrote fluently in five languages. This is not without consequences for the development of French structuralism and its exportation abroad: and it goes without saying that this limited reception of Jakobson and the eclipsing of the philological and cultural significance of the Prague School project has greatly contributed to the reaction against structuralism which has been witnessed in the post-structuralist thought over the last generation in France and elsewhere. American scholars following Derrida are rejecting a form of structuralism – a form of sterile neo-classical

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accademic French structuralism – which had its roots in the once vibrant French rhetorical tradition. But neither that French rhetorical tradition nor the sterile formalistic structuralism which imposed itself in French schools and universities from the nineteen-sixties onwards bore much resemblance to anything Mukarˇovsky´ had to say about poetics and the significance of poems for the Czech language and its people.

Levy´’s Contribution This brings us to the raison d’Þtre of this chapter. If we are to salvage some of the remains of the Prague School which escaped recuperation by international scholars, we first have to recognise both the full wealth of that school’s research and the depth of its reach into society and into poetic language. If seen through the prisms of post-war structuralism and stylistics as they have been practiced in Western countries, rigorous study of formal aspects of poetic language risks appearing reductive and sterile unless we make an effort to uncover the full extent of the scope of the Prague School and its preoccuations.We need to leave behind French and English conceptions of structuralism, if we are to understand the Prague School and the generation to which it gave birth in the fifties and the sixties in the Communist Czechoslovakia. Poetic and linguistic research from the Cold War period was almost totally dismissed by Western scholars. The political reasons for this reaction are no more flattering to ourselves in the West than they are to the Czechs themselves: we simply wished to believe that nothing of value could survive without the intellectual freedom we praised ourselves for preserving. Such a desire directed both the policies of our institutions and our free market pubilishing houses which tended to promote dissidents. This neglect constitutes a small tragedy in the field of poetics, in which Jirˇ„ Levy´ made what is probably the most outstanding contribution to comparative versification and the theory of poetic translation of all time. This may seem like the prelude of a dithyrambic celebration of this scholar, but the aim of this chapter is rather to offer a critique of Levy´’s work, The Art of Translation (Umeˇn„ prˇekladu), published in Prague in 1963 and translated into German though never into English. No doubt Levy´ (a man animated by a deep desire to further our understanding of poetics and translation) would have recognised that critique is a form of celebration, an act of respect. But before engaging in the critique of his findings, it is, of course, worth stressing those qualities which make Levy´’s research so remarkable. The richness of Levy´’s approach lies in the fact that there is no division between his theory as a philologist and his practice as a translator. His question remains a very simple one: how can we translate a poem? This simple question

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leads him to address the problems of transposing syntax, rhyme, euphony and metre. With this he embarks upon an impressive comparative study of these elements in various languages, and though he finds himself obliged to introduce fine distinctions related to the nature of these elements and the way they have been harnessed by each language’s poetic tradition and by the individual poet working within his tradition, Levy´ never loses sight of the fact that these elements only take on meaning within the single and undivided impression which the poem as a unity makes upon the reader. In this, Levy´ proves to be very much the inheritor of the Formalist tradition incarnated by Tynyanov and the Prague school structuralist poetics of Mukarˇovsky´. For Tynyanov, Mukarˇovsky´ and Levy´, the poem is one complex dynamic whole. Consequently, all research into the individual elements or components of that whole can only be held to be of use or of interest in as much as they show the way one element works as part of the orchestrated ensemble by asserting itself in relation to other elements. The question for Levy´ immediately becomes: how do we enact the same dynamic interaction of those elements in the translated poem which must also act as a whole? One might be tempted to conclude that poetry is more difficult to translate than prose because a poem has metre and rhymes. Although this is obviously true (as far as regular metrical verse is concerned), it tends to obscure the nature of the movement of poetry by suggesting it is more complex than prose. Levy´ points out on the first page of his study that this is both true and false. Quoting the French stylistician, Pierre Guiraud, Levy´ points out that one of the essential differences between the syntax of prose and poetry is that the latter is often much simpler. Subordinate and auxiliary clauses in the sentences of French verse were found by Guiraud to be between 25 and 50 % less frequent than in prose for example (Levy´ 1963, 225). On the other hand, the movement of poetry owes its complexity (in part at least) to two factors: the interaction between the sentence and the verse line, and the internal division of the line itself. This led Levy´ to compare the internal division of verse lines in different languages and to consider the influence of lineinternal divisions upon intonation. This in turn took Levy´ far beyond the simplistic conceptions of foot metrics (which though abandoned by specialists continue to hold currency today in all of the major languages). In French, for example, Levy´ stressed that the line-internal shaping of French syntax was crucial for the balance of the French verse. Though traditionnally we tend to define French verse in terms of syllable-count (d¤compte syllabique), cataloguing lines in terms of alexandrins (12 syllables), decasyllabes (10 syllabes), octosyllabes (8 syllables) and so forth, Levy´ mastered the theory of French versification and knew Grammont’s Petit trait¤ de versification franÅaise (1906; Grammont 1989). He was perfectly well aware that verse lines of more than 8

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syllables were considered to be »complex verse lines« (vers compos¤s) and that they required a cæsura in order to maintain their metrical character. Nevertheless, unlike many metricians, Levy´ was as interested in the way individual poets shaped the regular contours of their verse as he was in the rules which allow regularity to be maintained. For this reason, he pointed out that the same force that shapes the rising-falling intonation of the French alexandrine which climaxes at the cæsura, can equally be employed within each of the h¤mistiches. Levy´ offered the following examples to compare the way this same shaping force of syntax and intonation acts at two different levels:

Such distinctions can be found in both traditional treatises of French versification (Grammont 1989) and contemporary guides to metrics (Mazaleyrat 1990). However, two things distinguish Levy´’s approach from those of much French versification. Like the contemporary poetician, Henri Meschonnic, and like the author of the monumental Dictionnaire de po¤tique et de rh¤torique (1961), Henri Morier, Levy´ does not set out with a view to establishing the rules of regularity. He accepts these rules as essential governing principles, but his sensitivity is for the individual shaping of those governing principles. He is interested in the way regularity emerges within the voice of the individual author, and it is the timbre of that voice which he seeks to catch. This sensitivity to voice is inextricably bound up with Levy´’s work as a thinker of translation: he listens to the poem and to the attempts to transpose its voice. Intonation patterns and syntactic breaks do not therefore represent formal constraints which must be reproduced in the translation, but rather aspects of a complex meaningful dynamics which must be reshaped using different linguistic resources in the target language.

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In the same way Levy´’s treatment of rhyme differs from traditional formalist definitions. Because rhyme for Levy´ could never be reduced to a formal constraint, a cog in the machinery of verse; rhyme for Levy´ had three functions, one of which was its »meaningful function«: rhyme acts as a link which »forges a meaningful link between corresponding words (and thereby between corresponding verse lines)« (vytvrˇ„ vy´znamovy´ spoj mezi souzneˇj„c„mi slovy (a t„m i mezi prˇ„slusˇny´mi versˇi), Levy´ 1963, 281). Levy´ did not deny the importance of rhyme as an aesthetic formal constraint: indeed his third function for rhyme was its »euphonic function« (282). However, this function was not divorced from the meaningful movement of expression in Levy´’s analysis, and it was that meaningful movement, he argued, that the translator should be discerning in the original and recreating in his translation. As he put it »[r]hyme is not an isolated element of the poem, but a part in the complex interplay of acoustic and semantic values of the work of art« (Ry´m nen„ izolovan slozˇka bsneˇ, ale soucˇst slozˇit¤ souhry akusticky´ch a vy´znamovy´ch hodnot d„la, 281). The second function Levy´ attributed to rhyme was its »rhythmic function« (1963, 281). Rhyme stresses line-endings, thereby supporting the coherence of the line as a distinct metrical unit in a series of like units. Thus, the role played by rhyme in Levy´’s translation theory could not be reduced to one formal element which must find a corresponding element in the foreign language. The translator had to be sensitive to the status of the ryhme in »the complex interplay of acoustic and semantic values.« This has fundamental repercussions for translation, because the poetries of certain languages are more dependent upon rhyme than others. English metrical verse retains its metrical character if rhyme is removed, as its blank verse tradition in poetry and theatre proves. French, on the other hand, has been unable to maintain a blank verse tradition, which implies that French poetry is more dependent upon what Levy´ calls the second function of rhyme, the »rhythmic function,« in which rhyme strengthens and supports the coherence of the metrical line as a unit. For this reason, though it might seem justifiable to translate Racine’s rhyming couplets into rhymeless metrical verse (blank verse) in English, dropping the rhyme in translating Shakespeare’s sonnets would lead to something more akin to free verse and (to my knowledge) no metrically-bound blank verse Sonnet translations have been attempted in French. Levy´’s treatment of rhyme is characteristic of his treatment of all elements of the poem; they are all treated as inseparable parts of the »interplay« (souhra) of the poem. Levy´’s conception of poetry grew out of a conception of language which had been clearly defined in the founding theses of the Prague school. For Mathesius, Trnka, Jakobson and Mukarˇovsky´, language could only be understood as a »functional system,« a »system of expressive means harnessed towards a certain objective,« (Fontaine 1974, 27). In the conception of language of

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these four scholars, we can understand no language act without considering it in its context within the system to which it belongs, (Fontaine 1974, 27). In the same way, the poetic work constituted a »functional structure« in which no element should be analysed in isolation from the elements upon which it depends, (Fontaine 1974, 38). In contrast to his approach, post-war scholarship in the fields of stylistics and metrical analysis has often fallen into the habit of examining fragmentary details within the confines of independent schools which communicate less and less with one another. Generative metrics in the United States and the post-Jakobsonian study of accoustic patterning which the followers of Ruwet in France practice have, as a result, tended to offer little stimulation for those interested in what poems say and what they do to us when they move us. Levy´’s approach is doubly rewarding. Firstly, it directs our attention to the interaction between sine qua non structural constraints of regular verse (rhyme and metre) and to the interaction between those constraints and the other forms of free patterning in the metrically-bound poem. Secondly, it attenuates the misleading opposition between free and metrical verse. In Levy´’s approach, metrical verse is significantly more complex and varied in nature than reductive structure-focused approaches would have us believe. Free verse, on the other hand, is not »free«: it is shaped and held together by free patterns of organisation which do not imply rigid rules but rather discernable forms of similarity and opposition such as the rising-falling pattern within the cæsura quoted above, or foregrounded alliterative links. For this reason, Levy´ postulates: »Free verse is not a shapeless linguistic succession, and cannot be translated into prose split up into lines,« (Volny´ versˇ nen„ beztvar jazykov posloupnost, a nemu˚zˇe se prˇekldat prûzou rozdeˇlenou do ˇrdek, Levy´ 1963, 367). Levy´ advocates that the translator discover the »stylistic principle of the author’s poetics« (odhalit stylovy´ princip autorovy poetiky) and transpose it to the other verse system (versˇovy´ syst¤m, 367). True, Levy´’s study of the transposition of free verse (367 – 82) is limited to accentual and syllabic patterning and to the organisation of syntax, but there is nothing in his writing to suggest that he did not see other acoustic elements, such as alliteration and free line-internal rhyming, as forming part of the shape of free verse. Levy´’s appoach thus has the advantage of not opposing free and metrical verse but of positing them as two distinct forms which enact a »complex interplay of acoustic and semantic values« the latter of which refines this interplay into more rigid structural prerequisites. Yet this is far from the only advantage. Formally speaking, Levy´’s study, based on a synthesis of international research and inspired by the rigorous work of the Prague School, goes into much greater detail and offers a far more profound conception of each of the elements of the poem. This is very much the case in his treatment of rhyme: his detailed comparative

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study of rhyme shows that this element is itself subject to dissimilar linguistic constraints in different languages. Because of the vast number of different suffixes which words can take on in synthetic languages such as Czech and Russian and Italian, there is much more scope for rhyming in these languages. The Italian word amare (to love) can take on between forty and fifty suffixes (amo, amavo, amai, amerý etc. Levy´ 1963, 283). This allows Italian to rhyme constructions derived from »love« with thousands of other words (1963, 286). Its counterpart in Czech, lska, can for the same reason offer an almost limitless number of rhymes (286). »Love« in the dative form (lskm: to loves) for example, rhymes with the dative form of »us« in k nm (to us). This explanation can be confirmed by consulting contemporary rhyming dictionaries. The Dictionnaire des rimes orales et ¤crites (Warnant 1998) offers one hundred and twenty rhymes for amour, while The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary (Ferguson 1985) offers only eleven for love. That Levy´ was right to stress that rhyme was a question of meaning is confirmed by the fact that the linguistic constraints on rhyming tend to shape the way poets link words and thoughts. Even the greatest of the English poets cannot escape those linguistic constraints. Given the relative poverty of the rhyming potential of English, Shakespeare finds himself forced to use all of the most predictable rhymes for love (glove, dove, above) as can be seen in Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps the most impressive achievement of Levy´ was to master a wide variety of languages and their systems of versification. Because Levy´ does not restrict himself to studying how we translate Russian, Polish, French, German and English verse into Czech: he compares Spanish and Polish verse, he considers the translation of Polish verse into French (1963, 251), Old English into Modern English (256) and modern French into modern English (319). It is, therefore, no exaggeration to say that Levy´’s contribution to comparative versification and to translation theory was outstanding. His contribution can be summed up in three fundamental points. He offered the first rigorous multilingual comparison of the poetries and versification systems of different languages. He did not fall into a formalist treatment of formal elements of poetry. In the West, reminders that form and content are inseparable are de rigueur, but this has not prevented much detailed formal analysis from leaving behind the aesthetic and poetic aspects of poems. It has not prevented others from ignoring the contribution of formal patterning to the impact of the poem upon the reader as a meaningful act of expression. Neither has it prevented much textual anaylsis from using ineffectual and out-dated systems of metrics. The vast majority of post-war thinkers fall into either the formal or the semantic camp and those scholars who denounce the consolidation of the schism between form and content and who call for a return to the poem (Meschonnic, Wesling) resound like voices crying in the wilderness. Even attempts to relink accentual patterning

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to syntax had to wait until the 1990 s in English-speaking countries with the work of Cureton (1992), Attridge (1995) and Wesling (1996). Until then, sentence structure in poetry tended to be considered only in as much as it failed to coincide with line-ends (enjambement) for example. Given the scope of Levy´’s comparative work, his capacity for harnessing both Czech and international scholarship, and his remarkable ability of utilizing linguistic research for furthering our understading of the poetics of translation, it is hardly surprising that he has no real inheritors. In Prague, his Art of Translation is considered a magum opus and forms one of the main pillars of translation studies programs (partly because his work englobes a historical study of the development of translation in the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia). Outside of the Czech Republic, the impact of Levy´’s work has been virtually nil. Inevitably, comparative scholarship into poetics and versification such as the Princeton Encylopaedia of Poetry and Poetics have tended to juxtapose the findings of experts of individual languages since few scholars can claim to master more than their own or one other foreign tongue: translators, on the other hand, have tended to restrict themselves to airing their ideas and impressions in the prefaces to their translations. Wherever comparisons are made, only two languages are usually taken into account. But it is not simply the knowledge of several languages which is at stake here: it is a question of remaining sensitive to the fact that languages are the cultural constructs within which poetry is born and within which versification systems emerge. It is within the constraints of those languages that the individual voices of poets take shape, finding a resonance which allows the poet to speak meaningfully within the tradition to the multitude using the shared idiom. The Prague school listened to that multitude and to the resonance of the individual voice which resounded within that living tradition. In this sense, the Prague School’s concepts of »ordinary language« and foregrounded speech were not fixed poles, binary opposites against which to contrast poetic language: they were the mutually-conditioning forces and expressive resources of human expression. Without the Prague school as the cradle to Levy´’s intellectual education, his conception of translation theory would not have grown into such a fertile and inspiring system of thought. This is worth remembering when we compare his conception of poetics to those found in contemporary literature in journals such as Poetics Today, Style and, more recently, in the circle which has come to be called Cognitive Poetics.

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Gasparov If Levy´ has no real inheritors, two voices do, however, make a contribution to the field of research which Levy´ was carving out for himself; those of the Russian linguist, M.L. Gasparov and the French poet and poetician, Henri Meschonnic. Gasparov neither attempts a poetics of metrical expression nor a particularly innovative study of metrical problems in any one language. What is noteworthy about his work is that he attempts a hitherto unimagined historical outline of the development of syllablic, and accentual-syllabic metres and thier complex mutual influence upon one another throughout the history of our Indo-European languages. His choice of linguistic framework indicates that Gasparov sees himself as an inheritor of the great German linguists Bopp and the Grimm brothers, and more specifically of those linguists such as Bergk, Westphal and Usener who aimed to re-establish a Germanic Urvers (Gasparov 1996, 5). His project, which reaches back into Old Iranian (Avestan), Latin and Greek, traces the development of Germanic, Romance and Slavic metres up until modern times. The task Gasparov takes on in A History of European Versification (1996) is a daunting one. Among the stimulating findings which his research uncovers, at least two points deserve mention. Firstly, he shows that although metres are language-bound (to the extent that metres must repose upon the shapes that syllables and stresses can form), they do not, for all that, evolve deterministically. At times, scholars are inclined to see in the French alexandrin the perfect and appropriate realisation of the French language. The iambic pentametre at times appears to some of us to be the natural poetic expression of our language. In contrast to this naive deterministic view, Gasparov shows that a language can give a home to various forms of metre. English has known strong-stress and syllabo-accentual metres and has at least attempted syllablic metres. In the same way, Gasparov wrote: »The domination of the syllabo-tonic system in Russian verse continued for more than two centuries, from the middle of the eighteenth century until recently« (1996, 235). That Russian verse influenced Czech, Polish and Bulgarian verse throughout the nineteenth century : but Czech and Polish syllabic verse had influenced Russian verse in the seventeenth century, and if that influence had found some foothold it was perhaps because Russian shared with Czech, Polish, Bulgarian and Serbian a folk tradition in common slavonic metrical verse which used eight and nine syllable lines. Czech tends to confirm that metres do not develop deterministically. If metres were language-bound then it would seem natural for Czech to adopt the trochaic metre since in Czech the tonic stress always falls upon the word’s first syllable as in: potom (then) or nev„m (I don’t know). However, to avoid monotony, Czech poets chose to contravene this lingistic given by adopting the opposite form of accentual-syllabic metre (the iambic form) which sets an unstressed syllable before a stressed one.

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This allows an initial distancing effect which foregrounds verse in relation to common speech. The second point concerning Gasparov’s work that deserves mention is that no metrical tradition evolves in a linear fashion and that the influence of other languages makes itself felt at different periods in history. Influence between poetry and versification systems is, moreover, often a two way process. Translation is, of course, of crucial significance in the migration of metres from one language to another, as it is to the process by which an untenable foreign metre is reshaped into a new dynamic creation by the target language as translators strive to bring poems across the interlinguistic divide. An idea of the scope of this influence of and exchange between languages can be glimpsed from the overview Gasparov offers before the introduction of his book (1996, xvii; see figure on p. 325).

Meschonnic Meschonnic’s contribution to poetics in general and to poetry translation specifically is of an entirely different nature to Gasparov’s, and if we are to grasp something of the nature of the thought of this poet-translator-thinker-poetician who has published around sixty works, then we must proceed as we have done with Levy´ by trying to understand how he defined himself within the intellectual context in which he found himself working. Meschonnic’s work can best be understood in terms of attack and defense: he attacks approaches to poetry which distort the nature of poems and seek to use them for ends irrelevant to poetics and poetry. By doing so, he hopes to better defend poetry itself and to show what poetics has to reveal about language in general. This is no easy task: from the sixties to the nineties, a series of attempts were made to colonise the place held in the university by poetics in France. The discipline of philosophy (inspired by Heidegger and Derrida) began to appropriate poetry and poetics for its own purposes, winning over many students and scholars to their motivated conception of a certain ideal of what poetry is and what it does. Psychoanalytic approaches to literature began to do the same thing, seeking in the text the unconscious mind that was examined on the Freudian couch. Most of all, linguistics offered new stylistic approaches to literature (and to poetry in particular). Although such approaches had the charm of providing a rigour which was sometimes absent in the creative impressionistic intelligence of the mind cultivated by the contemplation of literature, they failed to take into account the social and aesthetic aspects of literary works. The new stylistics, which was one dominating force among linguistic approaches to literature, was,

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for example, unable to take on board the question of literary worth. If this linguistic-inspired stylistics was incapable of responding aesthetically to literary works, it was quite simply because the approach was incapable of offering a definition of what a literary work is. Distinctions between verse and poetry, between doggerel and poems, which had provided meaningful paradigms for literary discourse for centuries, lost their relevance in sytlistic analysis. Stylistics tends to accept what a culture considers to be poems without questioning the foundations or the legitimacy of their definition as such within the canon and within the culture. This was because stylistics scholars were working with Jakobson’s definition of literaturnost (that specifically »literary« quality in literary texts). Ironically, literaturnost was not a literary concept, but a linguistic one. It may have functioned differently for the Russian formalists and the Prague Structuralist, Mukarˇovsky´, but in Jakobson’s hands it became a term used by linguists to define something which presented qualities not found in common linguistic usage. Literaturnost became a category. And however much that category fascinated Jakobson, it was a category he placed outside of language as a whole. Russian formalists and structuralists were both working with an opposition between ordinary language and literary language: and this is precisely where Meschonnic takes position with his critique of linguistic approaches to poetics. Meschonnic argued that poetry was part of language and that a linguistics incapable of comprehending poetry in its conception of language was one which deformed our vision of language. Not only does poetry influence language, as Mcha influenced Czech, Shakespeare influenced English and Baudelaire influenced French, poets themselves are working with the same linguistic resources as all other speakers. Alliteration in advertising is not the penetration of poetic effects upon common speech, but rather the exploitation of a potential for binding concepts together using phonetic means: this potential is proper to language per se and can be found in all fields of discourse. In his critical poetics (Critique du rythme, 1982), Meschonnic made a vast survey of the approaches to versification and poetics in French, Spanish, Italian, English, German and Russian. In doing so, he wished to help us extricate ourselves from reductive formalistic approaches to rhythm which reduce the movement of poetry to a repetitive weak-strong beating. Meschonnic’s alternative, »rythme«, bears very little resemblance to this definition of rhythm. In Meschonnic’s conception, rythme becomes the shape the lyrical subject gives to to his poem, the organised discourse which transpires from his activity as the discourse-subject of that poem. This is a difficult notion to grasp, but it will be obvious that Meschonnic’s version of rythme (like Levy´’s concept of rhyme) implies semantic elements and cannot therefore be considered a »formal« or »stylistic« element. Rythme is the organisation of meaning: and that meaning is

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engendered (or formulated) using elements traditionally assigned to form in the form-sense division of the linguistic sign. This organisation of the subject in and by his discourse, is proper to language as a whole, but it finds its greatest expression, Meschonnic believed, in the poem which privileges the transformation of language by discourse. The poet is not acting outside of language or working against language, as the Prague school at times understands the poet’s work. The poet’s activity is simply a regeneration of language by a meaningful recycling of its own resources. Meschonnic finds misleading the tendency to consider certain »stylistic effects« as »poetic«. After all, it is patently true that alliterative links are found everywhere in language. Proverbs abound in alliteration (e. g. look before you leap). Meaningful oppositions are highlighted by phonetic links (e. g. friend or foe). In inventing new meaningful links, poets are only rekindling the fire of language. Shakespeare’s »fair is foul and foul is fair« (Macbeth, I.1) merely harnesses a common linguistic process, though in doing so Shakespeare transforms language as the meaningful links he forges resound throughout the centuries. Such expressive patterning is powerful but pervasive thoughout language. This language-transforming expression takes place in great translations too. English owes the expression clear as crystal (with its alliterative link, c/l, which foregrounds the metaphor) to the King James Bible. French translations, on the other hand, did not come up with such a powerful expression, and, consequently, French Bibles offer several different metaphors (brillant comme du cristal TOB 1988, limpide comme du crystal for the Bible de J¤rusalem 2001). These French translators did not opt for more conventional expressions such as claire comme l’eau de roche or comme l’eau de source which were probably themselves translations of the famous line from the Bible, but in any case neither those expressions nor the contemporary translations forge the meaning by binding the two terms of the metaphor with a sonorous link. Consequently, none of these expressions have acheived the same resonance within the French language as the inspired translation clear as crystal has come to form a meaningful and memorable expression for the English-speaking peoples. Meschonnic’s concept of rythme is so far removed from the meanings associated with the word »rhythm«in English that I have chosen not to translate it: this at least will prevent us from confusing it with metre or accentuation. But metre and accentuation also form part of his concept of rythme. What Meschonnic objects to is the reduction of the poem to the accentual or syllabic structure. Meschonnic reminds us to listen to the poem, and it is for this reason that his concept of rythme can best be understood in terms of the metaphor of the poem’s »voice.« Structuralist poetics sought the structure, then tried to understand how the voice fitted into the poem, as though poets constructed

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blocks of flats then fitted their thoughts and their feelings into each apartment, as the council’s housing officer allocates tenants. As Meschonnic pointed out, however, »the voice is not added to the structure,« (»la voix ne se rajoute pas ” la structure,« 1982, 275). The voice emerges with the configuration of the poem. Meschonnic turned structuralist poetics on its head by refusing to view poems as manifestations of poetry and by stressing that it is poems that allow us to form an idea of poetry : what we know of poetry comes from poems. From this perspective, it appears perverse to seek the ways the movement of a poem adheres to or distances itself from the metrical schema, as scholars inspired by the structuralist paradigm tended to do. Meschonnic prefers to view the metre as one of the emerging forces which give shape to the voice (or the rythme) of the poem. As he pointed out, »The metre does not exist outside the poem any more than the poem is created ouside of the subject,« (»Le mºtre n’existe pas plus hors du poºme que le poºme ne se fait hors du sujet« 1982, 275). The subject (sujet) should not be confused with the poet as a living person, the person of whom literary biographies are written. Nor should he be confused with the philosophical subject or the subject of psycho-analysis. The subject of the poem comes into being with and within the act of creation. In this sense, the poem is as much responsible for creating the subject as the subject is responsible for creating the poem. It is by the language-transforming act of creating an original (might we say »authentic«?) poem, that the poet reactivates a language’s creative potential. The presence of the subject in the poem is manifest in the accentual organisation of his verse, in the words he rhymes and the links he forges between different words. Like any other voice, the voice of the poet can be recognised from his »manner of signifying«, (significance). This signifying involves harnessing accentual patterns and phonetic links in order to body forth, or give form to, a certain act of expression. As Cassagne suggested, Baudelaire’s voice was in part shaped by his predeliction for rhyming certain words; t¤nºbres-funºbres (shadowsmournful/gloomy), mer-amer (sea-bitter), automne-monotone (autumn-monotony), (quoted by Meschonnic 1982, 264). These appear to the English ear original and intriguing rhymes, perhaps, but the reader of Baudelaire soon becomes accustomed to them. They act as the general backdrop to Baudelaire’s more startling rapprochements, such as intr¤pide-vide (intrepid-empty) in the following lines which enact a beautifully casual anticlimax, so characteristic of Baudelaire’s bathos:

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L’amoureux le plus intr¤pide Comme un flacon s’use et se vide1

For Meschonnic, signifying involves exploring and extending the alliterative links found in language in an original manner. What these links formed, Meschonnic called the »s¤mantique s¤rielle,« extended networks of phoneticallybound concepts. Baudelaire’s line »La musique souvent me prend comme une mer,«2 does not employ alliteration simply to cradle the reader with a repetitive sonorous movement which washes over him like waves, it forges a link between »music« and »sea« and (most importantly) with the me of the poem in which the two are fused in an emotionally charged moment of expression. The highly expressive semantic nature of the links in this phrase becomes only too obvious if we compare them to alliteration found in advertising. Take for example, Come down to Dan’s Discount store. Such alliteration attracts attention, but is in no way meaningfully expressive. It is impossible to give anything like an adequate impression of the extent of Meschonnic’s thought on poetics here. His translations of the Bible and his reflection on his own practice as a translator cannot be treated either in this chapter. The main ideas of his translation theory can be found in Pour la po¤tique II (Meschonnic 1972), Po¤tique du traduire (Meschonnic 1999) and Ãthique et politique du traduire (Meschonnic 2007). The brief definition of some of his concepts given above will have to suffice here. It is possible though to explain how Meschonnic’s approach to translation rejects the translation of meaning. He is not, on the other hand, in favour of a translation of form (a school of thought which has advocates as notable as Walter Benjamin). Meschonnic proposes that we respond to the voice of the poem, not by translating the structure but by re-enacting the signifying process (its signifiance). In translating Shakespeare’s »Sonnet 71,« for example, Meschonnic responds to the meaningful alliterative link Shakespeare establishes between »mourning« and »me« in the first line »No longer mourn for me when I am dead,« by linking »death« (mort) to »deadly mournful« (mourne ” mourir) in the first two lines of his translation:

Aprºs ma mort ne pleure pas plus tard, Que bat le glas qui bat mourne ” mourir (Meschonnic 1999, 299) 1 »The most intrepid lover / exhausts himself and empties like a flask.« (»Sonnet cavalier« Baudelaire 1975, 223) 2 »Music often takes me like the sea« (»La Musique« Baudelaire 1975, 68).

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Of course, the actual phoneme repeated will often change in the translation, and the translator will not always be able to find equivalences for the meaningfully charged process of signifying in the poem: but once we look beyond the structure and begin listening to the voice, then we might hope to compensate for losses in the translation by linking other words to make powerfully significant combinations which travel down the same road the original poem would have us follow.

Critique of Levy´ As we have seen, Levy´ had no inheritors, but Gasparov and Meschonnic, in very different ways, extend the project that Levy´ was working on. Gasparov opens up a historical dimension to comparative metrics. Meschonnic, on the other hand, like Levy´, confronts the translation of actual poems and is forced to explain what works and what does not work in the process. Levy´ certainly did not go as far as Meschonnic in making a critique of the form-sense conceptualisation of literature. Nor did he need to for his purposes. Unlike Meschonnic, he was working within a context and period which was sensitive to poems. Though at times Levy´ expressed himself using formal terms, his practice of translating and reflecting upon translating tuned his ear and sharpened his intuition when it came to discerning the patterning of particular poets and evaluating and analysing the creative responses of translators to the poems they translated. Meschonnic from the 1970 s onwards was preaching to a very different choir. Notwithstanding their differences, there is nothing incompatible, between the approaches to translation of Meschonnic and Levy´. The former’s theory could refine the latter’s concepts and the latter could extend the former’s linguistic scope. There remain, nevertheless, difficulties in Levy´’s apprpoach to poetry which must be briefly addressed. These difficulties concern his fundamental dichotomy of syllabic and syllabo-accentual verse. To criticise Levy´ on this point might seem somewhat perverse. After all, Levy´ simply took on board the metrical approaches of each language and compared them in a very impressive synthesis. This led him to propose the following schema: Syllabo-accentual metres

English Russian German Bulgarian Serbo-Croat Czech

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——————Polish Spanish Italian French (1963, 281)

However, if we take the two most representative forms of syllabic and syllaboaccentual metres in Levy´’s diagram, French and English, respectively, we are forced to admit today that neither of the theories of metrics with which Levy´ was working were capable of adequately explaining what happens in the poetry of these languages. Levy´ was relying on traditional foot metrics as his mode of interpreting English verse. Foot metrics had, however, long been identified as incapable of explaining the way in which speech is shaped into metrical regularity in the verse line. The idea that a five-stress line (a pentameter) has five stresses is patently untrue. Consider the first line of Shakespeare’s first sonnet: Despite its four accents, this line is perceived (and invariably read) as a perfectly

regular five-stress line. Other lines draw further from the five-stress metrical schema (as the first line of »Sonnet 21«):

In this line, only »Muse« is clearly stressed, with »not« and »me« each carrying a lighter secondary stress in the natural undulating movement of English. Once again, though, this line is perceived as a perfectly regular pentameter. If this is so, it is partly because we do not tend to read poetry as we pronounce everyday speech. The expectations we have of the sonnet as a regular poem comprising fourteen pentametric lines encourage us to seek out regularity where it can be found. This entails a certain manipulation of the stressing of normal speech. Traditional foot metrics sought various means of explaining this process and invented a whole series of terms (such as »wrenched accent« Cuddon 1991,1045). Such terms and explanations were never integrated into a coherent explanation of the rules of regularity and were moreover revealed to be totally useless when it came to explaining why one three-stress line appeared regular while another was

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perceived as wholly irregular. Worse still, traditional theories found it impossible to explain why many five-stress lines could not function as pentameters, and why four-stress lines failed to work as tetrameters. These questions were resolved when Attridge (1982, 1995) integrated the concepts of promotion and demotion into his binary scansion which distinguished the stress contour from metrical beating. The great advantage of his system is that it resists trying to resolve two entirely different forms of stress into one single linear accentual pattern. His system held metrical beating and word stress in suspension as two interacting forces which must be resolved by each reader. The stress contour was the accentuation of the syntax, the sentence as it would be read or spoken outside of the context of the poem. However, since poems are not read like prose, the expectations we have of regular metrical verse make us seek out regularity in the movement of the lines. Whether we find it or not, remains to be seen. Many of Shelley’s lines, and many of Donne’s, do not seem to fulfil the requirements we are expecting. If this is so, it is because they differ too greatly from the underlying undulating movement of weak and strong syllables, and often we seem to loose track of the discernable metre which has been set in motion by the poem. It is important to point out, however, that the number of stresses is not the fundamental condition for regularity. A three-stress pentameter is not necessarily perceived as less regular than a five-stress pentameter. What matters is the relationship between the syllables themselves. Can one weak syllable be promoted into a stress? Can a stress be demoted into a non-stress, a weak moment in the undulation of the line? It is upon these questions that our impression of a line’s regularity depends. Attridge explains promotion as that process by which the natural tendency of English to alternate weak stresses with one focal point of accentuataion is harnessed by the metre to allow one weak syllable to become stressed when it is preceded and followed by weak syllables. This process is clearly at work in the line from »Sonnet 21« quoted above:

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Because the syllables »is,« »with« and »me« are both preceded and followed by weak syllables, nothing in the line opposes their promotion. Their promotion does not imply that they receive the same stress as »Muse«, and indeed demoted stresses sometimes carry greater stress in a given line than promoted unstressed syllables. Nevertheless, as long as the weak-strong undulating movement is not contradicted, and as long as the reader is able to lightly promote weak syllables into beats, the metre will not be contravened, and the impression of regularity will be maintained. Just as promotion depends upon three weak syllables, demotion invariably occurs when three strong syllables are encountered. Though it is possible to demote one of a series of two stressed syllables, this presents significantly more difficulty than demotion in the triple-stress pattern. This is because English tends to avoid stress series, and in three consecutive stresses, the internal stress tends to lose its salience in relation to its neighbouring syllables. Attridge offered the following example of demotion from Shakespeare’s »Sonnet 55«:

Attridge was influenced by the work of generative metrics while he was developing his system of versification, a tradition represented today by Kristin Hansen. The crucial difference, however, is that Attridge’s approach is a readerfocused approach. It begins with the reader’s impression of regularity and irregularity and explains it with a convincing system based upon a limited number of fundamental processes, rules and concepts. Rather than reducing the verse line to an abstract structure, Attridge traces the way each line of a given poet approaches and moves away from the underlying governing principle of metrical order. In this sense, Attridge is closer to Mukarˇovsky´, Levy´ and ultimately, Meschonnic, than he is to most representatives of metrical analysis. Just as English specialists have long since abandoned the foot metrics with which Levy´ was working, recent French scholarship has refined its definition of syllabic verse. Notably Beno‚t de Cornulier in his Th¤orie du vers (1982) has contributed to our understanding of the workings of French versification by underlining the importance of accents in the French line. Until recently, accents were ignored in French versification (Grammont 1989) and were attributed a non-metrical status by Mazaleyrat (1990) who considered them as rhythmic elements which colour the movement of the verse line without contributing to its organisiation as a rule-bound structure.

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Cornulier’s contribution was to prove that the French verse line is dependent upon the accent. All simple metres (of up to eight syllables) must end with an accent. All composite verse lines (vers compos¤s) must comprise an accent not only at the end of the line but also at the cæasura. The d¤casyllabe invariably has two metrical accents, one at the fourth, one at the tenth position in the line. The alexandrine requires an accent at the sixth and the twelth position. This is not to say that there are no other accents in the line. A line may have various accents (as both Grammont and Mazaleyrat pointed out). But, as Cornulier put it, those other accents did not play a metrical role in defining and maintaining the metre. If we apply Cornulier’s thesis to the first two lines from Hugo’s »Baraques de la foire,« we can observe the way various accents come into play though only some of them (and not necessarily the most salient among them) perform a metrical function:

In these lines, a number of other accents are at work. The name, »Lion! « itself is stressed as a form of exclamative address, and »ú« cannot go unstressed. Actually both stresses are stronger than the one carried by the tonic syllable at the end of the word »majest¤.« Nevertheless, by a process of metrical reinforcement, the syllables I have highlighted coincide with strategic metrical points at the end of the lines and at the cæsura, and are, therefore, attributed sufficient weight to maintain the regularity of these alexandrines. This will no doubt seem difficult to understand for the English (and the Czech) reader, because stress does not work in French as it does in English. Consequently, the accentual patterning of verse does not work the same way in the two languages (Underhill 1999). As we saw above, in English, a series of stressed syllables can enact a demotion of a central syllable, while a series of unstressed syllables can enact a promotion of a central syllable. French, on the other hand tends to subordinate penultimate stresses to the final stress. Put simply, the movement of English revolves around word stress. The movement of French revolves around the phrasal accent (accent du groupe). It is always the final syllable of a phrase which finds itself stressed in French. Therefore, adding a syllable to the end of a phrase will displace the accent to the newly-added final syllable. This can be seen if we compare the following two examples:

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In terms of verse, what matters is that the end of the line and the caesura are marked by a stress. So long as these strategic positions of the line are metrically assured, the accentutaion of French verse allows great scope for accentual patterning within the verse. This short comparison allows us to posit a certain number of differences in French verse and English verse (Underhill 1999). French verse, like English verse, depends upon accentuataion, but the nature of that accentuation is entirely different. The accentuation of English verse is word-bound and line-internal. The accentuation of French verse depends upon the closure of distinct units (h¤mistiches and lines). If these points of closure are weakened, then the accentuation within the line contributes to the dissolution of the effect of regularity. Consider what happens if we leave a weak word at the end of Hugo’s line: Lion! J’¤tais pensif, û bÞte, je trouve que3

Not only does the line foreground an absurdly trivial word here, »que« (that), the weakness of the word has difficulty in imposing itself as a line-end stress, and is rendered even more precarious because of the internal dynamism of the line with the strong stresses on »Lion!« and »ú«. In the same way if the cæsura is no longer able to fulfil its role in French verse, the line no longer functions as a metrical unity. A twelve syllable line will not function as an alexandrine unless the line-internal stresses are subordinated to the metrical accent at the cæsura. For this reason, a free twelve syllable line is not called an alexandrine but a dod¤casyllabe, a line associated with free verse since it is experienced very differently from the poised rhythm of the mounting-falling alexandrine made famous by classical French theatre. The lines of Corneille and Racine, like those of Hugo, explored rich and varied accentual patterning, but they remained rule-bound in highlighting the strong closure of the two parts of the composite line. Freedom is inevitably curtailed, because freedom constantly threatens the coherence of the metrical structure in French verse. Since freedom is indeed a constant danger in French verse, the rhyme’s role of sounding the line-end becomes all the more crucial. Rhyme is regularly employed in order to raise relatively weak phrasal accents in French verse to a higher status in order to preserve the line intact. It should be clear then that the accent is crucial for French verse, contrary to 3 »Lion! I was left pensive, Oh beast, I feel that«

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what traditional metrics (and Levy´) claimed. Nonetheless, accentuation cannot be reduced to a mere metrical function in French verse, and it would be a mistake to see other accents as playing a merely secondary role in colouring the internal patterning of the verse. Poets regularly make use of the end of the line to divide sentences, thereby setting up a tension between the movement of the syntax and the metrical reading of the line. In Paul Val¤ry’s »La Fileuse« (The Spinner), for example, we find a line which might be translated as: »The dream unwinds with an angelic indolence.« This is pretty enough as a line of verse. But rhythmically speaking what is interesting about the French line is that it is divided in the following way : Le songe se d¤vide avec une paresse Ang¤lique

This line break contravenes the stress of French syntax, which would normally place the stress upon the final syllable of »ang¤lique«, while subordinating »paresse«. The metre, however, entices us to promote »paresse«, lengthening its stress deliciously and forcing us to pause upon this word which should evoke sloth and lack of haste. As this striking example shows, accents are therefore essential for the expressive movement of French verse. Accents, within the verse line stress meaningful words (as they do in everyday speech). Accents at line-ends foreground the meaning of words (and this form of highlighting is reinforced by rhyme). Accents caught in the tension between the movement of the sentence and the movement of the metre are foregrounded all the more. It should be obvious, then, that reducing accentuation to the formal patterning of an abstract metrical schema is a perverse distortion of the way we perceive the movement of meaningful verse.

Conclusion At the end of this chapter, we should return to Levy´’s initial question; how can we translate a poem. Levy´ himself shows the way towards a comparative metrics which should be of service to the translator. Gasparov enlarges this project. In doing so, he inevitably loses sight of the poem itself. Gasparov is dealing with metrics and poetry. Levy´ is dealing with poems and the way they are transformed in the act of translation. This helps him to avoid reducing the structure of poetry to an abstract formal principle. Levy´ does, however, conceptually speaking, remain within the limits of the linguistic sign which divides language into form and meaning. For this reason,

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Meschonnic was justified in criticising one of the few articles by Levy´ to appear in English The Meanings of Form and the Form of Meanings (Levy´ 1966) (Meschonnic 1982, 259). If we speak of the influence of form on meaning or of meaning on form we are already accepting to link up things which form part of one indivisible whole. Voice does not use form to support it or reflect its content. Structure emerges in and with the act of expression. This is something which Levy´ knew very well, as is demonstrated by his sensitive analysis of translations (and especially by his treatment of rhyme). But the theoretical framework with which he was working sometimes clouded his intuitive insight. Levy´ can hardly be criticised for not resolving the metrical questions which the scholars of each language took centuries to explicate: but if we are to elaborate today a comparative versification, it cannot be founded upon the misleading opposition between syllabic and accentual-syllabic metres. Attridge’s binary scansion is necessary to allow us to explain the regularity of English verse, just as we need to reinstate the accent if we are to understand the true subtlety of French rhythm. This should allow us to discern more clearly the forces and patterns which weave the poem into a regular metrical shape. To attempt to answer Levy´’s question, translating the structure is clearly insufficient. To translate the meaning and then impose a structure upon the verse would be grossly insensitive. Critics have always condemned prose chopped up into lines, calling it »doggerel« and »rat rhyme«: »versification« has also been used pejoratively in both French and English. Obviously, the translator that Levy´ envisioned was not a »versifier« or un versifacteur : he was closer to the poet, the writer who creates meaning in movement, setting up harmony, introducing tension, linking and highlighting significant elements of the poem. This subtle process of creative re-expression was the task Levy´ laid out for the translator. His sole aim was to translate the poem: and however complex the discussion of his simple question becomes, the translator’s response must be, quite simply, a poem.

References: Attridge, Derek (1982) The Rhythms of English Poetry, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Attridge, Derek (1995) Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baudelaire, Charles (1975) Œuvres complºtes, Paris: Gallimard. De Cornulier, B. (1980) Th¤orie du vers: Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarm¤, Paris: Seuil. Cuddon, J.A. (1991) Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, London: Penguin. Cureton, Richard D. (1992) Rhythmic Phrasing in English Verse, New York: Longman.

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Ferguson, Rosalind (ed.) (1985) The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary, London: Penguin Books. Derrida, Jacques (1967) De la Grammatologie, Paris: Ãditions de Minuit. Fontaine, Jacqueline (1974) Le cercle linguistique de Prague, Tours : Mame. Gasparov, M.L. (1996) A History of European Versification, ed. G.S. Smith with L. HolfordStevens, trans. G.S. Smith and Marina Tarlinskaya, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Grammont, Maurice (1989) Petit trait¤ de versification franÅaise, Paris: Colin. Hugo, Victor, (1967) Œuvres po¤tiques, volume II, Les Ch’timents, Les Contemplations, Paris: Gallimard. Jakobson, Roman (1977 – 1982) Selected Works, vol. 1, 3, 4, 5, ed. Stephen Rudy, The Hague: Mouton. Levy´, Jirˇ„ (1963) Umeˇn„ prˇekladu [The Art of Translation], Prague: SNKLHU Levy´, Jirˇ„ (1966) »The Meanings of Form and the Form of Meanings,« in Poetics 2, Warsaw: Pan´stwowe wydawnictwo naukowe, 45 – 59. Mazaleyrat, Jan (1990) Ãl¤ments de la m¤trique franÅaise, Paris: Colin. Meschonnic, Henri (1972) Pour la po¤tique II : ¤pist¤mologie de l’¤criture – po¤tique de la traduction, Paris: Gallimard. Meschonnic, Henri (1978) Pour la po¤tique V: po¤sie sans r¤ponse, Paris: Gallimard. Meschonnic, Henri (1982) Critique du rythme, Paris: Verdier. Meschonnic, Henri (1985) Les ¤tats de la po¤tique, Paris: PUF. Meschonnic, Henri (1990) La rime et la vie, Paris: Verdier. Meschonnic, Henri (1995) Politique du rythme: politique du sujet, Paris: Verdier. Meschonnic, Henri (1999) Po¤tique du traduire, Paris: Verdier. Meschonnic, Henri (2001) Gloires: Traduction des psaumes, Paris: Descl¤e de Brouwer. Meschonnic, Henri (2007) Ãthique du traduire, Paris: Verdier. Morier, Henri, (1961) Dictionnaire de po¤tique et de rh¤torique, Paris: PUF. Mukarˇovsky´, Jan (1948) Kapitoly z cˇesk¤ poetiky [Chapters from Czech Poetics], vol. 1, Prague: Svoboda. Mukarˇovsky´, Jan (1948) Kapitoly z cˇesk¤ poetiky [Chapters from Czech Poetics], vol. 2, Prague: Svoboda. Mukarˇovsky´, Jan (1964) »Standard Language and Poetic Language,« in A Prague School Reader in Linguistics, ed. Josef Vachek, John Burbank and Peter Steiner, trans. John Burbank and Peter Steiner, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Preminger, Alex, T.V.F. Brogan (1993) The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Rees, William (ed. and trans.) (1990) The Penguin Book of French Poetry, 1820 – 1950, London: Penguin Books. Shakespeare, William (1988) The Sonnets and Narrative Poems, London: Everyman Library. Underhill, James W. (1999) »Voix, Versification et Traduction« (unpublished PhD. dissertation, Universit¤ de Paris VIII). Underhill, James W. (2000) »Il ritmo nella traduzione poetica. Studio su una traduzione di ›Ione, dead the long year‹ di Ezra Pound,« Studi di estetica [Bologna], 28.1: 109 – 24. Underhill, James W. (2005) »Form and Meaning in the Translation of Poetry,« in Languages, Translations and Communication, Nizhny Novgorod: Nizhny Novgorod Dobrolyubov State Linguistic University Press.

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Underhill, James W. (2006) »The Forms of Negation: Metre and Metaphysics in the Versification of T.S.Eliot,« GRAAT [Tours] 35. Underhill, James, W. »Metamorphosis and the trans-form-ation of poems«, in La m¤tamorphose: d¤finition, forme et thºmes (forthcoming). Warnant, L¤on (1998) Dictionnaire des rimes orales et ¤crites, Paris: Larrousse. Wesling, Donald (1996) The Scissors of Meter : Grammetrics and Reading, Michigan: Michigan University Press.

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II Structuralism Today

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Aleida Assmann

Structuralism: Great Expectations or Paradigm Lost? A Personal Reassessment

In this chapter, I will look back at structuralism and discuss its intellectual impact in the 1960 s and 70 s. What has happened to this theory and mode of thinking that hit my generation with the power of a revelation? My question introduces a tail of other questions, such as: has structuralism been replaced by other approaches and convictions or does it continue to ground and inform our thinking? In which way is it compatible or incompatible with other theories and interests? And if it is compatible, in which way does structuralism persevere within systems theory, post-structuralism and deconstruction? Which leads to a much more general question: what have we given up, what remains with us, and, not to forget: what is there to rediscover about structuralism?

Great Expectations: A Biographical Confession These questions cannot be answered without some autobiographical input. When I started my studies of literature in the later sixties at the university of Heidelberg, my first guide into the new field was not a teacher but a book: Ren¤ Wellek’s and Austin Warren’s Theory of Literature. I read this magisterial work which was not an assigned but a personally chosen book in the spirit of religious devotion. More than the seminars and courses that I attended it was this book that initiated me into the new academic universe and laid the foundations of my intellectual formation. What became of those ›great expectations‹ with which I started my studies in the heydays of structuralism? I will begin my reassessment of structuralism with an examination of these expectations. In this context we need to ask: what exactly was the lure of this influential intellectual movement? Which hopes were fulfilled or disappointed? And, perhaps even more importantly : which hopes proved illusory and inapt? A collection of essays on The Prague School of Linguistics and Language Teaching was introduced in 1972 with the following sentence: »The linguistic

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sciences have been much in vogue during the past twenty years and their popularity seems unlikely to diminish« (Fried 1972, 1). In 1972 this statement was still true, which is confirmed by the fact that I was able to keep this book, slightly aged but unused, in my home library – together with many a Czech work on phonology, eagerly bought but hardly read. At the time, it was a must for me as a student of literature to buy all the relevant linguistic publications and store them as symbolic capital on my shelves. The linguistic turn that had ushered in not only a new language-consciousness but also the widely shared conviction that any access to the study of culture has to pass through the door of language and the linguistic paradigm. The structuralist approach to language was considered the prime key to the mysteries of human relations and the king’s way to the understanding of society and culture. The great expectation that language would be the exclusive key to understanding the world and its structuralist analysis would reign unparalleled as the paradigmatic science in the humanities turned out to be an illusion. Towards the end of the 70 s, this enthusiasm had abated. Structuralism became a ‘paradigm lost’ not through being explicitly refuted by arguments and debates but through a silent and continuous process of estrangement and erosion. Without much self-defense, it gave way easily to new leading paradigms such as marxism, feminism, deconstruction and the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, to name only a few of the successor candidates. It would be interesting to think more about the relations between these successors and structuralism that have been overlooked. These intellectual movements affirmed the political context and category of human agency. Luhmann’s theory has many parallels with structuralism: the systemic view, the constructive force of distinctions, the synchronous and homoeostatic approach, and, last but not least: functionalism. The most important difference between Luhmann’s system and Saussure’s system lies in the fact that the latter chose language for his model while the former chose the biological model of living organism (but cleared of its organicist connotations) for his general orientation. The greatest promise of structuralism (and it was perhaps also the lure of systems theory) was that it would close the gap between C.P. Snow’s two academic cultures, the natural sciences and the humanities, by offering the new methodology of a hard-core ›science‹ for the humanities. According to these assumptions, it is not only the study of nature that is guided by strict laws but also the works and workings of the human mind, be they reflected in the products of language, the use of artifacts, or the structure of texts, myths or systems of kinship. Closely linked with this scientific promise was a new way of investigating which did not content itself to look at an object but which penetrated the surface to look into it and even right through it. This penetrating gaze, the method to look beyond the surface in order to discover hidden deep

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structures was an enticing feature that structuralism shared with psychoanalysis. As psychoanalysis was designed to uncover the secret laws of the human psyche, structuralism claimed to uncover the secret laws of the human mind. The ability to see beyond what others are able to see constitutes a special competence that backs up a clear profile of professionalism. In the realm of the humanities with its soft methodology, much had depended on intuition, personal experience, and a stylized diction with the effect that the borderline between cultured knowledge and professional knowledge was notoriously blurred. Under the reign of structuralism, this borderline was reasserted. This is an important reason why structuralism was so eagerly embraced in the 1960 s and 70 s. It was promoted in academic institutions because it offered an emphatically self-assured methodology on an objectivist basis. To return to my first flirt with structuralism: entering a university and being initiated into an intellectual community is not only a cognitive affair ; it has also an erotic flavor. To encounter new theories is very much like dating; some are more attractive than others; one has to choose and ponder with which to enter into a life-long relationship. Monogamy, fortunately, is not a norm for the growth of a mind; friendship is a much better metaphor for the way in which the various phases of one’s life are determined and marked by intellectual influences and commitments, which are, of course, always framed and mediated by admired personal models, affect-charged relationships and unexpected encounters. Some of these intellectual systems are like old friends who disappear when they are superseded, others are kept at bay though they are not totally forgotten, and yet others are ungratefully abandoned and may even turn into sudden enemies. My relationship with structuralism is that of gratitude for an old friend whom I like to revisit from time to time in his home for the aged, both for nostalgic reasons and because these visits help me to call up and work through the lower strata of my own intellectual development. This chapter is exactly such a visit. It will explore the territory between the lure of structuralism and its discontents, between its ›great expectations‹ and its status as a ›lost paradigm,‹ picking out three ideas from the bankrupt’s estate that I consider worthy of attention and further intellectual development.

System and Time One of the standard notions about structuralism is that it has shut out the dimension of time and adopted an anti-historical stance. It is true that structuralism developed from a turning away from the key orientation of the nineteenth century, which was historicism. Within the historicist paradigm, a definite origin in history and its growth in time was considered the one and only clue

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for the understanding of any phenomenon, be it an institution, a person, a text, an artifact, a cultural practice. In opposition to growth, development and change, structuralism focused on function which could only be studied in a synchronous context. Phonology, for instance was born together with the premise that »no element of any language system can be properly evaluated if viewed in isolation: its correct assessment can only be obtained if its relationship is established to all other elements co-existing with it in that same language system« (Vachek 1972, 13). The emphasis here is of course on »co-existing«, but this implies in no way timelessness. From its very start, the system was conceived of in terms of process and change. Structuralism therefore implies not a turning away from time but a new approach to time, looking not at isolated changes but at changes as sets of relations within a system and between systems. Roman Jakobson and others have pointed out that the evolution of language can only be duly interpreted if it is conceived of as an evolution of a systemic whole within which the relations of the elements composing it are often reshaped and/or replaced by other relations, the main aim of such changes being to maintain (or, as the case may be, to restore) the balance of the given language system. (Vachek 1972, 13)

Temporal change is obviously affirmed, but it is not described in terms of a linear process: the new way to describe temporal change is in terms of a systemic whole that constantly recomposes itself to maintain a state of balance. We may also say : a system is like an organism that has to continually adapt to the environment and its challenges; in doing so, it works according to a program that transforms external changes into internal changes. Thus, the structuralist system is in no way static but presents itself as a dynamic set of internal relations and external stimuli to which it responds. Constant re-adaptations or replacements are necessary in order to reproduce itself and maintain its dynamic identity over time. Today, after the emergence of systems theory and memory studies, we have a much better understanding of these processes and are better equipped to do justice to the structuralist approach to time. As an example of a systemic approach to time, I will introduce a famous essay on »Tradition and the Indiviudal Talent« (1919) by T.S. Eliot (Eliot 1969, 45 – 60). Although the term »system« does not appear in Eliot’s essay, his concept of tradition is systemic in the technical sense of the term. In this text, Eliot refers repeatedly to literary tradition as a »whole,« which for him is another term for »system.« When Eliot redefined or rather reinvented his concept of tradition, he was influenced by the kind of systemic thinking and discourse that was developed at the beginning of the twentieth century in various disciplines. Eliot describes tradition as a system that reorganizes its economy constantly with

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each change and renewal. He replaces historical categories such as »development« and »cause« with aesthetic categories such as »whole« and »unity,« in which the old and new are in a constant process of re-adjusting to each other. By translating historical language into systemic language, Eliot turns away from history without, however, discarding all notions of process, dynamics and temporality. This is his famous description of tradition as a dynamic system: What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for the order to persist after the supervention of the novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. (Eliot 1969, 50)

By using a systemic approach to tradition, Eliot can allow for movement and change in complete independence of causal or chronological models. He thus deconstructs the framework of chronology, which had been the backbone of historicist thinking. But he is far from simply abstracting time and arresting the object of his analysis in synchronic space. Instead, he stresses the internal dynamics of a system which is built on the co-adaptation of the old and the new. It is interesting to note that Eliot’s concept of tradition as a process of permanent internal restructuring is not only in keeping with early structuralist theories but also corresponds with the model of memory as conceived by some philosophers and sociologists of his time. In 1925, six years after Eliot’s essay on tradition, Maurice Halbwachs published a book on the »social frames of memory,« Les cadres sociaux de la m¤moire, in which he presented the laws of memory in surprisingly similar systemic terms. This is Halbwachs’ description of »framework« which clearly corresponds to Eliot’s »whole«: Every time we integrate our impressions into the framework of our current ideas, the framework changes our impression, but the impression also modifies the framework [. . .] This results in a constant work of adjustment that, with every event, requires us to return to all of the concepts we have worked out on the occasion of prior events. If it were a matter of simply moving from a prior to a later fact, we could remain constantly in the current moment, and in it alone. But in reality, we must incessantly change from one framework to the next, which doubtlessly differs very little from the first, but in any case differs. (Halbwachs 1985, 189)

The last sentence sounds almost like a translation of Eliot’s »the whole existing

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order must be, if ever so slightly, altered.« Eliot’s concept of tradition is detemporalized, but not rendered motionless; it does not invoke a concept like Walter Benjamin’s »apocatastasis« – there is no »all in all« or »total recall.« The reference to Halbwachs alerts us to Eliot’s concept of tradition as memory. Although the word does not appear in his essay, it gives a precise description of the process of remembering which is related to the past, yet always takes place in the present. Both memory and tradition are systems in the sense that they are reconstructions of the past in the present. Both are determined, limited and made possible by what is visible at that particular moment in time and space. We can never know the past as such; we can only access it from the present. There is another theorist, who has to be invoked here, because he used the term »system« in order to develop a theory of the dynamic literary process. In his essay »On Literary Evolution« (1927), Yuri Tynyanov defined system as »a whole, the unity of which is determined by the interrelations of its individual components.« For Tynyanov, such a system was a far cry from a harmonious and indifferent order. »A system does not mean the coexistence of components on the basis of equality ; rather, it presupposes the pre-eminence of one group of elements and the resulting deformation of others« (quoted in Erlich 1965, 199). In this view, the history of literature is not a neutral continuum, but, rather like memory itself, a process of rewritings and deformations as they arise from the conditions of perception and the dynamics of dominance at each present moment. The word »deformation« here has no negative connotations, because there is no standard of a binding norm that transcends history. Temporal change is systemically described in terms of a constant replacement of frames, a continuous appropriation, a new »perspectivization,« a new rewriting. As a literary critic, Eliot was particularly interested in this potential of creative deformation; he hoped to make literary history productive again by congenially aligning it with his own norms of innovations. Tradition, as a cultural memory that lends itself to creative deformation, differs from a canonical tradition that merely enforces veneration. In the light of the new systemic discourse, Eliot was able to think dialectically and to make the ends of various polarized concepts meet such as »tradition« and »innovation,« order and change, part and whole.

Beyond Functionalism Functionalism was the great innovation of structuralist thinking which allowed new approaches to the study of language. Going back to Karl Bîhler’s famous model of the functions of language, structuralists elaborated further functions and developed their specificities. Bîhler’s model describes the three basic functions that are involved in speech utterances: an emotive one that is linked to

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expression, a conative one that is linked to appeal and a referential one that is linked to the world of objects and facts. Jan Mukarˇovsky´ added to this matrix the aesthetic function, which links the utterance to itself and to the other words in which it is embedded. The aesthetic function does not only occur in literary language. He insisted that it is a universal phenomenon »and not even linguists can deny its place among the basic functions of language« (Mukarˇovsky´ 1967, 49). The aesthetic function does not cancel other functions, but contributes to the complexity of the model. It adds a quality of self-reflexivity which involves a refocusing of attention on the linguistic signs themselves. Mukarˇovsky´ on this basis generalized that autonomy or non-functionality was the specific and proper function of art, which was itself a highly political statement in the politicized context of the 1930 s. (It must be added, however, that he revoked this theory and made his peace with Stalinism in the late 1940 s.) To Bîhler’s three and now four functions Roman Jakobson later added two more, the phatic function oriented towards the channel of communication and the metalingual function, oriented towards the linguistic code (Jakobson 1960, 350 – 77). The interest of the Prague theorists in the multiplication of functions can be interpreted as a strategy against homogenous concepts of man and reality. Mukarˇovsky´’s thinking was directed not only at the complexification of functions but also at restricting and questioning the central concept of function itself. This question became the focus of one of his later publication on »the intentional and unintentional in art.«1 In this essay, Mukarˇovsky´ distinguishes between two dimensions of a work of art which are responsible for its double status. The intentional is what is semiotically encoded and addressed to a reader or viewer who receives the work as a sign. The proper response to the work of art as a sign is to decode it, to understand it, and to relate it to conceptional frames. The hypothesis here is that we are dealing with a medium that can become transparent for some kind of meaning. The unintentional side, on the other hand, constitutes the work of art as an object, which, like all objects, is opaque. When the object quality of the work of art is foregrounded, the search for meaning is frustrated, the desire for sense is blocked, and the reader is referred back to his senses. It is in the constant oscillation between the experience of meaning and the experience of the object, between the intentional and the unintentional dimensions that the work of art unfolds its continuously renewed energy. This interminable energy, according to Mukarˇovsky´, is related to the double experience of the work of art as object and sign, depending on the perspective and disposition of the reader. The work simultaneously speaks and it withholds itself. The non-semiotic event or object-quality of holding back causes an irritation in the receiver, who, however, is thereby not only perplexed and frus1 See also Wutsdorff (2006).

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trated, but also affected and aroused to discover new aspects and new forms of perception.

Analysis and Interpretation We have started with the penetrating gaze of structuralist reading strategies and have come full circle with the literary text not only as a sign but also as an object that penetrates the reader. There is a more general dilemma at stake here that touches on a contradiction between theory and practice within the project of structuralism itself. The theory of the Prague structuralists which converges with the theory of Mikhail Bakhtin is that they are both engaged in opening new meanings when sounding the potential of a work of art (Wutsdorff 2006). They all emphasize the interminability of the reading process and protest against acts of closing this process by the power and authority of a last word. Especially in Eastern Europe, this theoretical emphasis on the open and dialogic process of meaning production had, of course, obvious political implications. There is, however, which is rather confusing, a contrary tendency in structuralist practice that aims at the objectifying, demystifying and pinning down of meaning. Some texts, like Baudelaire’s »Les Chats,« that had been operated on by various eminent structuralists with the result that these texts, which had been taken apart and analyzed so conclusively hardly ever stimulated new encounters or lured readers into a second round. When in the 1960 s and 1970 s I felt attracted by structuralism, this had much to do with the promise that it opened up an access to new topologies of meaning, to hidden matrixes of texts or cultures, to mental maps and the ways they were organized. I vividly remember the time when every text I read was promptly submitted to a process of rewriting into rigid patterns and grids which were supposed to yield hidden structures of meaning. To a quite high degree, the scientific project of structuralism lay in the objectivist stance that aims at discovering meaning without involving the reader as gendered personal self or historical subject. This scientistic orientation carried the thrilling promise of cracking codes and gaining pure knowledge. The scientific lure of power and control, however, was bought at a high price: it required us to leave out time, historical circumstances, and most of all: the experience of the body. It is small wonder, then, that structuralism was followed by a reassertion of what had been elided: gendered views, political stances, individual experiences and the senses. As I see it today, this preoccupation with deep structures satisfied a deep desire for control over that shifting and unruly object, the text. In the process of its analysis, a text was transformed from a chaotic engine of meaning-proliferation into an orderly and manageable system of relationships and constellated terms. In this process,

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subjective reading turned into objective analysis; the pleasurable or painful encounter with the text gave way to a rather mechanical and distanced x-ray of it. Mikhail Bakhtin addressed this problem in an article in the 1970 s in which he distinguished between interpretation and analysis. For him, interpretation is an act that has to be continuously repeated, whereas analysis is an act that leads to the clearly defined end of a final result. While analysis provides closure by dissolving a mystery, interpretation maintains and intensifies the mystery by adding to the semantic weight of the text. Analysis is a scientific and secular project which is oriented towards a verdict, a result, a solution to a problem. Interpretation, on the other hand, is first and foremost a way of prolonging the interaction with the text. It is modeled on the status of the sacred text, the aura of which is maintained in continuous forms of interaction. Bakhtin introduces the terms symbol and concept to make his point. According to him, meaning can only be answered with another meaning. There are two possible approaches to meaning: one is the rationalization of meaning (the scientific analysis), the other is the deepening of meaning with the help of other meanings (the philosophically-aesthetic interpretation). This deepening occurs by widening the context and drawing in what is remote. The interpretation of symbolic structures has to penetrate into the infinitude of symbolic meaning. This is the reason why it can never become an exact science like the natural sciences.2 (Bakhtin 1979, 360)

Mukarˇovsky´ and Bakhtin, each in his own way, have shown that the structuralist urge towards a truly scientific method for dealing with texts and art has its obvious limits. The structuralist technique of scientific analysis and x-raying jars with its premise of the text as a perpetual engine of meaning.3 At the peak of its momentum, structuralism was more than a theory, a method or a practice – it was a world view. In the early nineteen-seventies it offered an exciting mental adventure that was not to be missed. When revisiting this adventure today, the effect is very much that of visiting an old friend whom one has lost sight of for a long time. We become aware of various mannerisms to which we respond with estrangement, but we also feel a deep and grateful sense of familiarity and loyalty.

2 If the idiom in which the description of the work of art is carried out is not in some way cognate to it, the interaction ceases to be »dialogic« and is transformed (to use Martin Buber’s langugage) into an »I-it-relationship.« 3 According to Harold Bloom, »reading a text is necessarily the reading of a whole system of texts, and meaning is always wandering around between texts« (Bloom 1975, 107 – 8).

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References: Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1979) »Zur Methodologie der Literaturwissenschaft,« in Die østhetik des Wortes, ed. Rainer Grîbel, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 1979, 349 – 57. Bloom, Harold (1975) Kabbalah and Criticism, New York: Seabury Press. Eliot, T.S. (1969) »Tradition and the Individual Talent,« in The Sacred Wood: Essays in Poetry and Criticism, London: Methuen, 45 – 60. Erlich, Victor (1965) Russian Formalism. History – Doctrine, second, revised edition, The Hague: Mouton De Gruyter. Fried, Vil¤m (ed.) (1972) The Prague School of Linguistics and Language Teaching, London: Oxford University Press. Halbwachs, Maurice (1985) Das Gedchtnis und seine sozialen Bedingungen, Frankfurt /M: Suhrkamp. Jakobson, Roman (1960) »Closing statement: Linguistics and Poetics,« in Style in Language, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 350 – 77. Mukarˇovsky´, Jan (1966) »Zmeˇrnost a nezmeˇrnost v umeˇn„« (Intentionality and Unintentionality in Art, 1943), in Studie z estetiky, Praha: Odeon, 89 – 108. Mukarˇovsky´, Jan (1967) »Die poetische Benennung und die sthetische Funktion der Sprache« (1938), in Kapitel aus der Poetik, trans. Walter Schamschula, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Vachek, Josef (1972) »The Linguistic Theory of the Prague School,« in The Prague School of Linguistics and Language Teaching, ed. Vil¤m Fried, London: Oxford University Press, 11 – 28. Wutsdorff, Irina (2006) Bachtin und der Prager Strukturalismus. Modelle poetischer Offenheit am Beispiel der tschechischen Avantgarde, Mînchen: Fink.

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Monica Spiridon

Bakhtin after Bakhtin: The Fate of a Pioneering Theory of Language

Bakhtin Revisited My presentation maps out a tenuous retrospective assessment of Bakhtin’s theoretical legacy consistent with a wide variety of epistemological agendas, which »interpreted« him in every possible sense of the word: from translation to exegesis, from paraphrase to rewriting and inevitably to misreading. From the mid-sixties, Bakhtin has progressively become a cultural star and fostered a persistent vogue. In 1981, one could have come across an article on Bakhtin in a publication like The Sunday Times and in 1988, at the triennial congress of the ICLA (International Comparative Literature Association) an entire section was dedicated to him. In 1990, at the congress of the FILM (F¤d¤ration Internationale des Langues et Litt¤ratures Modernes) Bakhtin inspired an independent colloquium. Nowadays, popular culture, media studies, semiotics, poetics, the theory of the novel, literary history, philosophical anthropology and pragmatics all openly lay claim to him. The first step on the path of this spectacular reception was made by post-war semiotically-oriented literary theory. Julia Kristeva initiated the reassessment of a completely forgotten theorist, whose life was obscurely drawing to its close. Her reading of Bakhtin boosted modern speculation on intertextuality, which was expanded into the abundant contemporary assumptions on the pre-/trans-/ or arch-text. Gerard Genette (1979, 1982) Linda Hutcheon (1985), Margaret Rose (1979), among many others, at least appeared to follow in her footsteps. Approached from a different point of view, Bakhtin became involved in the theoretical boom of post-structuralist hermeneutics (de Man, 1983). Todorov, a moderate structuralist, played a leading role in this development. The French theorist had earlier promoted Russian formalism on the French intellectual market, editing a classic book: Th¤orie de la litt¤rature. Textes des formalistes russes r¤unis par Tzvetan Todorov (Todorov 1966). Under the title Mikhail Bakhtine: Le principe dialogique suivi par Ecrits du cercle de Bakhtine) he also edited the most important Bakhtin texts in French dating back to the nineteen-

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thirties, when he was at war with the formalist dogmatism of the OPOYAZ (Todorov 1981). Unfortunately, at that time, the so-called »dialogic principle,« a universal pattern of verbal interaction, did not achieve any rating on the intellectual market of a country not ready to part with formalist structuralism. The texts compiled and edited by Todorov provided an efficient transatlantic passport for Bakhtin. In the wake of the American translation of Todorov’s book, under the title Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogic Principle (Todorov 1984b), the former enemy of the OPOYAZ emerged as one of the most important literary theorists of our century. Only one year later, in PMLA, vol.100, no. 2, the executive director of the Modern Languages Association offered a substantial reward to the reader who could spot the first mention of the »Master Thinkers« of twentieth century humanistic culture in the collection of the journal. Bakhtin was top of the list, followed by Barthes, Freud, Derrida, Claude L¤vi-Strauss, etc. On the same side of the Atlantic Bakhtin’s early opus Art and Answerability legitimized a well-articulated phenomenology of dialogism, rooted in the text, but pointing to the much wider horizon of theological thought (Clark, Holquist 1984b). As it became apparent, by means of intertextuality, dialogical hermeneutics and so on, the late reception of Bakhtin turned him into a pioneer of post modern plurality and pan-anthropologism, which significantly marks contemporary intellectual discourse. However, the more familiar we are with the numerous and highly interpretable writings of the Russian theorist, the more we feel the pressure of an unavoidable question: can one discern a fundamental core, able to bring the widest variations and at the same time to secure the unity of his manifold heritage? The main purpose of the following pages is to answer this rather rhetorical question. I will consequently try to circumscribe the horizons between which Bakhtin has simultaneously moved from 1919 through to the early seventies. Perhaps in doing this it will become clearer that the dynamics of his thought have been dominated by a top-down pattern, which took off from philosophy and anthropology towards linguistics and from the speculative towards the empirical rather than the other way around.

The Critique of the Formal Method Perceived as rather marginal in his original horizon of expectations contemporary to the fancy, brilliant and vanguard oriented formalists, Bakhtin’s hypotheses passed almost unnoticed. For a long time his image remained imprisoned by a rigid academic perception, assessing him as a positivist poetician, albeit more flexible than his enemies, the formalists.

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In Bakhtin’s critique of the so-called »formal method« a close reading can reveal an astute energy of reworking formalist theoretical hypotheses (Bakhtin, Medvedev 1985, 118 – 28). A series of scholars, such as Gary Saul Morson, I.R. Titunik, Kristyna Pomorska, Ladislav Matejka, contended that in several respects Bakhtin represented a connector between the Russian and the Czech structuro-formalisms on the one hand, and western post-war structuralisms on the other (Morson, Emerson 1989, Titunik 1984). Bakhtin’s system should be evaluated in explicit contra-distinction to formalism, which was the starting point of his own hypotheses. The formalists grounded the structural formal specific of literary language in its contrast to practical or ordinary language. They insisted on »estrangement« as the functional engine of literariness, as Shklovski contended. Matters of »content,« such as ethics, history, values, among others, were downgraded to the status of »mere material« and subsequently discarded: The formalists began from the false assumption that the fullness, generality and breadth of meaning could not be included in the material here and now of the poetic construction. Their fear of meaning in art led the formalists to reduce the poetic construction to the peripheral, outer surface of the work. The work lost its depth, three-dimensionality, and fullness. Their concepts of material and device are expressions of the superficial view of the construction. Having established a reverse proportionality between meaning and artistic significance, the formalists inevitably arrived at the device, which, as the combination of indifferent material, was formalistically empty. (Bakhtin, Medvedev 1985, 118)

The OPOYAZ practically institutionalised what I would call a Model of the Alternative in every possible respect: poetic-language and its estrangement (ostranenie) is an anti-common language; devices are counter-material; subject is a forced remodelling of the fable; every literary series emerges as a total displacement and reversal of a preceding one, etc. Bakhtin’s system bears, on the contrary, an obvious centripetal and integrative mark, since the negation and the alternative have been replaced by a cumulative transgressive move: The problem would have been solved if the formalists had succeeded in finding an element in the poetic work which would simultaneously participate in both the material presence of the world and in its meaning which would serve as a medium, joining the depth and generality of meaning with the uniqueness of the articulated sound. This medium would create the possibility of a direct movement from external form to intrinsic ideological meaning. (Bakhtin, Medvedev1985, 118 – 19)

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The Russian theorist operates with an all-encompassing, extensive notion of form. This means that in the terms of the Copenhagen Structuralist School he is very keen on the »form of the content«: according to him, in its very substance, the content has been permeated by language. In Rabelais and his World (1984a) Bakhtin does not define the key concept of »carnival« as a mere eclectic ideological content, or as a semi-institutionalised cultural form, but as a »form of the content,« simultaneously oriented towards culture and towards power. Opening all the severe methodological brackets of the OPOYAZ Bakhtin helped integrate their hypotheses into wider significant horizons: The very presence of the utterance is historically and socially significant. The utterance is not a physical body and not a physical process, but a historical event, albeit an infinitesimal one. Its individuality is that of a historical achievement in the definite epoch under definite social conditions. This is the individuality of a sociohistorical act, which is fundamentally different from the individuality of a physical object or process. (Bakhtin, Medvedev 1984, 121)

At a certain point, in his substantial assessment of the formal method Bakhtin labels the dynamics of the relationship between literary language and its context as a »dialectical« process. (Bakhtin, Medvedev 1984, 29) At this point, we need to remember that after having been imprisoned, he continued to write under a severe Stalinian censorship and was consequently constrained to disguise his categories in a convenient Marxist manner (Voloshinov 1976). In the abundant, heteroclite texts of Bakhtin, most frequently untitled, we can identify a core hypothesis concerning the modelling force of linguistic expression. It magnetically attracts in its orbit a huge mass of distinct materials, pertaining to the individual, the community, the world, society, history, culture, etc., and will eventually fuse them in a formal architecture: The material individuality of the sign and the generality and breadth of meaning merge in the concrete unity of the historical-phenomenon-utterance. This meaning is itself historical. The organic connection between the sign and meaning attained in the concrete historical act of the utterance exists only for the given utterance and only under the given conditions of its realisation. (Bakhtin, Medvedev 1984, 130)

Switching to the area of diachrony, it is necessary to note that the formalists mobilized strong evidence to support the hypothesis of the text as a product of supra-individual laws and of impersonal forces. For them, the text is a selfsufficient object, independent of non-literary values and strongly resisting external pressure. Bakhtin locates literary dynamics beyond the perpetual, me-

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chanical clash of only two types of discourse (poetical versus practical language). He seems more interested in the battlefield where huge discursive armies fight each other, producing a fascinating, endless polyphony, largely dependent on various contexts and historical rhythms. It is worth noticing that in Bakhtin’s discursive world, the swift tempo of innovation, prevailing in the formalist universe, is replaced by a chronology that would probably have been labeled by the French theorists of the Annals School as la longue dur¤e. This type of movement is so slow that sometimes it becomes imperceptible and most probably its basic unit is the century. Overall, Bakhtin defends a top-down approach to language, literature and the humanities, in sharp contrast to the bottom-up formalist point of view. For him the study of literature is a branch of the study of ideologies (Gardiner 1992). We cannot conclude this sketchy presentation of Bakhtin’s counter-offer to formalist hypotheses, without recalling his obsessive, early interest in the subdivisions of the epistemological discourse. In Bakhtin’s dispersed writings it is possible to discern the landmarks of a »transversal discipline« (to use a trendy phrase), operating with a repertoire of mediating categories which inter-connect history and ideology with linguistics. The following paragraphs of my chapter draw on this disciplinary project.

Towards a Transgressive Discipline: »Meta-linguistics« Both scientific and speculative European structuralisms have stimulated projects committed to transform metaliterature into an overarching theory of human sciences. Closely followed by French structuralism, Bakhtin’s contemporaries, the Russian formalists, also aimed to create a science whose particular object was verbal art: the science of literature. In this way, the laws that rule literature were moved on the premises of linguistics. In his turn, Bakhtin expressed a lifelong interest in the area. In a series of notes dating back to the very end of his life, now published under the title Towards a Methodology for the Human Sciences, Bakhtin draws a fundamental distinction between the »exact« and the »human« disciplines. Whilst »exact« sciences concerned with the objects of knowledge are monologic, »human« sciences, he maintains, are necessarily dialogic (Bakhtin 1986, 159 – 72). This idea was the starting point of Bakhtin’s endeavour to build a methodologically integrated approach of human sciences, joining together linguistics, aesthetics, epistemology and ethics: in other words, an audacious translinguistics, which he occasionally called meta-linguistics. The object of this transgressive discipline is language, as manifest in dialogical relations between speakers (Bakhtin 1984c). This brand of metalinguistics obviously implies that the appropriate terms

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for the study of language are to be found beyond linguistics. We need to remember Bakhtin’s early concerns for the axiomatic cooperation between aesthetics, epistemology and ethics, as expressed in his first important study Art and Answerability (Bakhtin 1990). Seen in the retrospect, he emerges as an antisystematic thinker, allotting only a small local area and a mere propedeutic function to systematic linguistics. In Speech Genres, for instance he blames the confinement within the text as promoted by formalism (Bakhtin 1986, 159 – 72). In Discourse in the Novel it becomes clearer that this category of »voice« is a semantic and not a psychological concept: »They are speaking voices carrying the image of a language« (Bakhtin 1981, 336). Constantly interested in the symbols through which humans negotiate meaning, Bakhtin has circumscribed a main field of significance and legitimized it by means of a whole repository of concepts, intended to give shape to linguistic interaction. Language was understood by Bakhtin mostly as an arena in which communications are established between people, groups and generations, across cultural barriers and between ideological antagonisms. The backbone of the transgressive or transversal intellectual discipline defended by Bakhtin is a series of normative arch-concepts. In fact, he patented and promoted a long list of epistemological categories, which unfortunately left room for conflicting interpretations. All of them, dialogism, heteroglossia, speech genres, voices, carnival, are firmly grounded in the linguistic soil, at the crossroads of the empirical and the speculative, induction and deduction, text and context. (Bakhtin 1986) The very core of his system, the most diversely interpreted and the most frequently misunderstood concept, now almost embodied by Bakhtin, remains the »dialogue.« Bakhtin was frequently portrayed as a »Figure of Dialogism.« In contemporary poetics there are several groups of worshipers of »dialogism,« a concept which eventually acquired the same status that Ihab Hassan used to assign to post-modernism: a kind of raspberry vinegar that automatically upgrades the most ordinary meal to the dignity of »nouvelle cuisine.« In the simplest terms, »dialogism« can be defined as the aperture of an utterance towards the indeterminacy of the discursive area, which in its turn has been baptised »heteroglossia.« In fact, the categorial couple dialogism and heteroglossia manages to cover both the formal and the social faces of the same reality. Beyond its international scholarly career and productiveness, Kristeva’s category of intertexuality, represents more or less a »misreading« of Bakhtin’s hypothesis on dialogism, triggering one of the main contemporary movements towards transgressing the closure of the text: any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations, any text is the absorption and transformation of another. The

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notion of intertextuality replaces that of intersubjectivity, and poetic language is read as at least a double (Kristeva 1980, 66). Complaining about the subsequent interpretations of the term she originally launched, currently conceived as an inspirer of a brand of source-criticism that plays the card of a mechanical text/pre-text relationship, Kristeva switched to the category of »transposition«, also borrowed from Bakhtin. Any signifying practice is the transposition of diverse signifying systems (Kristeva 1974, 59). The transposition and the polysemy as developed by Kristeva represent crucial dimensions of any text, in the same way that it is also true of Barthes, in S/Z, to quote just one example. Another conceptual landmark of Bakhtin’s, the »speech genres« (»les genres du discours« in Todorov’s pioneering translation) has had an interesting career. Speech genres (normative, mediating and hermeneutic categories) are essential tools of the negotiation of meaning, which takes place in specific historical contexts. Embodying the mutability, the diversity and the historic determination of meaning, they betray a theorist obsessed with the foundational heterogeneity of sense (Bakhtin 1984b). It was frequently noticed that Bakhtin firmly believed in the free combinations of the units of language. Nonetheless, these allegedly »free« combinations are regulated by a virtually infinite number of rigorous generic norms: The utterances and their speech types that are speech genres, Bakhtin contends, are the drive belts from the history of society to the history of language (Bakhtin 1984b, 65). Shaping our speech in all its meanings and forms, between common speech utterances and sophisticated cultural structures such as the novel, operate diverse but stable generic patterns of expression (the everyday narration, writing formulas, standard military command, the repertoire of business documents and the diverse types of social, political commentary among several mentioned by Bakhtin). The categories devised by Bakhtin can move freely, transgressing the borders of art and heading towards life: his understanding of the aesthetic realm was a very extensive, a Kantian one (Clark, Holquist, 1984a). Whatever can be qualified as human, even life itself, Bakhtin maintains in his late notes, always gets formalised and this process of modelling is highly ritualised. Since Bakhtin emphatically stressed the flexibility and the complexity of meaning especially when delivered over to readers, many of his interpreters inferred from this that, for him, meaning was radically unstable, in the same way in which deconstructionist hermeneutics saw it. In fact, whilst promoting pluralism and relativism, he was cautiously keen on the »limited freedom« of interpretation and on the category of norm. In his late essays of 1970 – 71 he contends that any type of understanding is under the pressure of external norms and that »freedom« simply means awareness of these norms.

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In this particular respect, he seems to meet the earlier hypotheses of Charles Saunders Pierce, who taught pragmatics at Harvard in 1903 and insisted on the necessary relationships between the communicators, in the framework of the »unlimited semiosis« he preached. Contemporary scholars agree that for Pierce »the interpretant« refers not only to simply interpretive processes but also to an interpretive community and to its restrictive norms, embodied by diverse cultural products and structures. Bakhtin seems quite close to this extensive meaning of interpretive communities, now quite active in contemporary semiotics, in the wake of the Tartu School. Significantly, as regards literary prose, Bakhtin was not interested in short stories as formalists were, but in the novel: a highly integrative genre, favouring intertextuality, openness, intermingling, and mediations and so on. Later on his analyses were extended towards the temporal-spatial models named »chronotopes,« that found the sub-genres of the novel. For him, Dostoyevsky epitomized translinguistics or metalinguistics, where the interest in literary text and in the history of ideas reaches a profitable balance (Bakhtin 1984c). It is worth noting that all Bakhtin’s concepts have to be situated in the framework of a particular discipline, be it philosophical anthropology or pragmatics, modernist literary theory, socio-linguistics, post-structuralist or post-modern thought and so on. This is a highly debated issue, which continues to divide Bakhtinian scholars. Among his first-rate interpreters, Katerina Clark, Michael Holquist (1984b) and Todorov (1984a) would favour philosophical anthropology, I.R. Titunik (1984) and Gary Saul Morson (1989) linguistics. This is due to the fact that most of his concepts are both historical and normative and the umbrella-category of dialogue is a generative concept, which can be seen both as a textual model and as an anthropological paradigm. Beyond any conflicting options, Bakhtin made a major contribution to the actual understanding of human sciences, questioning the monolithic, reductionist category of structure and operating in the interstices of several traditional disciplines.

Conclusions: Bakhtin our Contemporary Bakhtin’s hypotheses on the cumulative rather than negative virtues of »form« paved the royal way for European intellectual thought from structuralism to post-structuralism and to contemporary semiotics, which proclaimed the validity of the sign as the model of culture as a whole. As a declared anti-Saussurian (he tagged Saussure’s hypotheses as »abstract objectivism«), the Russian theorist met Pierce in the rebuff of the narrow semantic approaches of meaning. Both of them grounded it in interpretative communities, which share a repository of

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go-betweens such as genres, codes, the most diverse linguistic patterns, archetypes, etc. Bakhtin’s comprehensive approach to human sciences was founded on the identity of their substance – called either text or verbal utterance – and on the unity of their methodology. This allowed him to seek bridges between the individual and the social as well as between language and history, boosting a formal analysis of ideologies, dominated by dialogism. If, at this point, we attempt to answer the question outlined at the beginning of this chapter, we can conclude that the main core of Bakhtin’s thought was to be found in his early texts which, in rhetorical terms, acted as a prolepsis in anticipating what was to follow. His first important text, Art and Answerability, dates back to 1919, when Bakhtin was only 24, while the very last one was published in Moscow in 1975. This gap of almost 50 years constitutes an obvious unity disguised in the most confusing diversity : all linguistic issues are approached within the framing perspective of extremely wide categories, open to philosophical anthropology in its widest sense. However, when compared to the very first, his latest contributions bear an obvious pragmatic mark. His heritage recommends him not only as a prominent linguist, a technical semiotician, a forerunner and a developer of structuralism and post-structuralism but also as an important moment in the history of the European intellectual discourse. It seems that between the mid-sixties and mid-nineties we witnessed a spectacular »Bakhtin battle,« comparable to the one unleashed by the rediscovery of Walter Benjamin. The sustained »Bakhtin after Bakhtin« interpretive scenario eventually came up with the effigy of an atopical Bakhtin: an outstanding link in the great chain of the history of ideas. Now that this chapter is drawing to its close, I realise that perhaps a better title would have been »Bakhtin, our contemporary.«

References: Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1981) »Discourse in the Novel,« in The Dialogical Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, Austin: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1984a) Rabelais and his World, trans. Helene Iswolsky, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1984b) »Les genres du discours,« in Esth¤tique de la cr¤ation verbale, trans. Alfreda Aucouturier, Paris: Gallimard. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1984c) Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, trans. Caryl Emerson, Manchester : Manchester University Press. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, ed. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, trans. Verna McGee, Austin: University of Texas Press.

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Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1990) Art and Answerability : Early Philosophical Essays by M.M. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holquist and Vadim Liapunov, trans. Vadim Liapunov and Kenneth Brostrom, Austin: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, Mikhail M., P.N. Medvedev (1985) The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship: A Critical Introduction to Sociological Poetics, trans. Albert Wehrle, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Clark, Katerina, Michael Holquist (1984a), The Influence of Kant in the Early Work of Bakhtin, in Strelka, Joseph P. (ed.), Literary Theory and Criticism, New York : Academic Press. Clark, Katerina, Michael Holquist (1984b), Mikhail Bakhtin, Harvard: Harvard University Press Gardiner, Michael (1992), The Dialogics of Critique: M.M. Bakhtin and the Theory of Ideology, London: Routledge. Genette, Gerard (1979) Introduction ” l’architexte, Paris: Seuil Genette, Gerard (1982) Palimpsestes. La litt¤rature au second degr¤, Paris: Seuil. Hutcheon, Linda (1985) A Theory of Parody : The Teachings of Twentieth Century Art Forms, New York and London: Methuen. Kristeva, Julia (1974) La r¤volution du langage po¤tique, Paris: Seuil. Kristeva Julia (1980) »Word, Dialogue and Novel,« Desire in Language. A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, ed. Leon S. Roudiez, trans. Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine and Leon Roudiez, Oxford: Blackwell. de Man, Paul(1983) »Dialogue and Dialogism,« Poetics Today, 4.1: 99 – 107. Morson, Gary Saul, Caryl Emerson (1989) Rethinking Bakhtin: Extensions and Chalenges, Urbana: Northwestern University Press. Rose, Margaret (1979) Parody & Metafiction: An Analysis of Parody as a Critical Mirror to the Writing and Reception of Fiction, London: Crom Helm. Titunik, I.R. (1984) »Bakhtin and/or Voloshinov and/or Medvedev : Dialogue and/or Doubletalk?« in Stolz, Benjamin A., Lubom„r Dolezˇel, I. R. Titunik (eds) Language and Literary Theory, Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press. Todorov, Tzvetan (1966) Th¤orie de la litt¤rature. Textes des formalistes russes r¤unis par Tzvetan Todorov, Paris : Seuil. Todorov, Tzvetan (1981) Mikhail Bakhtine: Le principe dialogique suivi de Ecrits du cercle de Bakhtine, Paris: Seuil. Todorov, Tzvetan (1984a), »L’humain et l’interhumain (Mikhail Bakhtine),« in Critique de la critique. Un roman d’apprentissage, Paris: Seuil, 83 – 192. Todorov, Tzvetan (1984b), Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle, trans. Wlad Godzich, Manchester : Manchester University Press. Voloshinov, V.N. (1986) Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, trans. Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik, New York: Academic Press. Voloshinov, V.N. (1983) »Bakhtin School Papers,« Russian Poetics in Translation, 10.

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Erik S. Roraback

Niklas Luhmann and Forms of the Baroque Modern; or, Structure, System and Contingency

It was in the heyday of structuralism of the 1960 s that Niklas Luhmann (1927 – 98) began his prodigious efflorescence of publicational work that would evolutionarily build on his highly complicated, yet useful systems theory, very much canvassed and informed by notions of self-reference as the supervening functional structure of today, of diverse theories of difference such as self-differentiation and variability, of communication, of autopoiesis, and of risk. Luhmann’s imaginative, productive and provocative interdisciplinary usage of the strategies of structuralism is enriched by his concomitant enlistment of evolutionary-biological and modern information theories. The present chapter will thus aim to give the principal contours of Luhmann’s systems theory in order to spotlight a selection of its milestones in raising the level of the debate for our contemporary concern with the twinned concepts of structure and system as chiefly a question of self-reference and self-differentiation in the engenderment of a self-reproducing auto-poietic society. Crucially, I want to argue for the notion here of a relational baroque system (i. e., 1600-present) of differences of capitalist modernity outfitted by structure, risk and contingency accordingly as an apposite, dialectical way of revisiting our modern baroque-era foundation stones. This would give us one plausible way for a thoughtful and searching attempt to understand reality situations in the first decades of the twenty-first century. William Rasch writes in his first-class study of Niklas Luhmann, For some [modernity] is an ongoing project; for others it is history; and for still others it has never happened. For Luhmann, it is the precondition of all our deliberations, the ›structure‹ within which our ›semantics‹ makes sense […] the structure of contingency that forces selections, which […] force further selections […]. (Rasch 2000, 2 – 3)

Here then »modernity« is a »structure,« to wit, the structure for thinking the

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baroque modern. For the present critic it is even more profoundly a question of the deeper materialist structures of relation of capitalism or of capitalist modernity, which is to say a whole body of capitalist rationalities, if you prefer, than it is merely of the rather basket term »modernity,« per se; yet another first-rate Luhmann critic, Hans-Georg Moeller, explains, modernity can be described as the attempt to reunite the Cartesian subject that was split into mind and body with the help of an overarching humanism. Luhmann […] tries to grant all the different dimensions of bodily life, of conscious experience, of communicative practice their own right of existence. Luhmann is neither a monist nor a dualist, he is a thinker of multiplicity and difference and in this respect he is more ›postmodern‹ than ›modern.‹ (Moeller 2006, ix)

But again, I see the problem more one of (baroque-period) capitalisms than of the foregoing, though this is of course a part of the multiple capitalist picture, including any feasible endorsement of a distinction between the concepts modern and postmodern; for further clarification, Moeller adds that for Luhmann, »[s]ociety is not made up of small units that constitute a larger unit, it is rather based on differences that constitute more differences« (Moeller 2006, 40). Today we can cash that in thanks to the work of figures from philosophical culture such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida. Also, for Rasch in a disclaimer, that »Niklas Luhmann, modernity’s most meticulous theorist, should ›side,‹ as it were, with postmodernity yet reject the melodramatic term as simply expressing the need, as he puts it, to ›catch up on the semantic level‹ (Luhmann 1998, 18)« (Rasch 2000, 10), shows that we are in truth of fact for Luhmann not experiencing any structural changes in society since the eclipse of the so-called feudal age of hierarchical stratification. It is in this sense that we live still in an age pried open and terraced by the classical baroque of the seventeenth century. Indeed, Luhmann notes that »in about 1600 the system concept began its historical career« (2002, 38); and furthermore he writes that »the structure of systems, [may be seen] as capital, in the sense of an accumulation of money or knowledge or power, or as history« (1990, 41), which makes for a rather baroque notion of plural modern capitalist systems from multiple points of view, not least a classical experience of the periodizing one. This retroactive activity of going back to the age of major ferment, precariousness and risk of the classical seventeenth-century version of the baroque accords to a notion too that it is dialectically exigent that we return to the origin of modernity if Luhmann is correct, when he notes that, »one finds oversubtle strategy discussions but insufficient reflection on the structural origins of the conflict and the valid grounds of the opponent« (2002, 117). That is to say, more precisely, I

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think, that the notion of ›origins‹ or a baroque absolute is a way for us of thinking the absolute in an historical way as traditionalists in the good sense that Walter Benjamin gives the term in his influential essay, »The Destructive Character«. The structuralist (on some level) Jacques Lacan echoes this periodization of the modern as a perhaps surprising if not noumenal and so unconscious baroque thing when he notes in his celebrated Paris seminar of 1969 – 70, which has been translated into English as The Other Side of Psychoanalysis: I recommended to one charming person that he reread Baltasar Gracin, who, as you know, was a Jesuit living at the turn of the seventeenth century. All things considered, this is where the view of the world that suits us was born […] It’s curious, but that’s how it is. (Lacan 2007, 183)

To put it succinctly, the real matter at hand then is cognition of this diachronic unit of temporality of 1600 to the present as the correct framework for apprehending the modern present (albeit another correct view out there to note parenthetically would yet again have the fourth- and fifth- century Saint Augustine, as thinker, as the true prophet and inaugurator of the Occidental modern). Luhmann notes that, »[s]ince the end of the sixteenth century, the idea of self-maintenance has been used to displace teleological reasoning and to reintroduce teleology by the argument that the maintenance of the system is the goal of the system or the function of its structures and operations« (1990, 11). This goes hand in hand with the birth of the modern more or less capitalist individual and capitalist brain, which themselves may be seen, we shall see, as autopoietic systems structured within a more macro-level autopoietic societal system. And for Rasch, [w]hat is […] important, according to Luhmann, ›is not the emancipation of reason, but emancipation from reason,‹ an emancipation that ›need not be anticipated,‹ because it ›has already happened‹ […] the fall from reason […] has landed us not in a surreal wonderland of unreason but rather in the midst of a plurality of competing rationalities, ›high-energy rationalities,‹ as he says, ›that only cover partial phenomena, only orient society’s function systems‹. (Rasch 2000, 11)1

Benjamin’s acclaimed angel of history here then has been unfettered from »the storm of progress;« but has it really? I think not. For the issue of the historysensitive angel is rather more one of progress than of rationality, per se. The 1 Luhmann quotations are from (1998, 18, 25)

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foregoing would then more concern Paul Klee’s 1927 painting Grenzen des Verstandes (The Limits of Reason) and its creative value than Klee’s Angelus Novus from 1920, which, it is well known, Benjamin privately owned. Be all this as it may, furthermore, for Rasch: »If the modern world is a differentiated world, defined by functions and relations, not essences, then, too, modern reason is a differentiated reason, distinguishing itself from itself, dividing itself into system-specific and function-specific rationalities« (2000, 12). A kind of baroque saving of reason in the plural, via plural rationalities, for plural functional and relational systems, therefore is what is needed. Why for example, as multiple commentators have already remarked, does the university apparatus all too easily take on board a certain kind of advanced capital corporate and so dangerously parochial rationality that would seem at odds with the development and evolution of revolutionary and adventurous thought? An amplificatory pluralization of rationality would be the way to realize the world intrinsically from inside, as it were, by incorporating the notion of self-differentiated forms of reason for a more just, genuine and humane rationality that would be more reasoned as well as functionally and relationally effective, perhaps too in a way that would prove a vindication of a true worldwide humanism as of yet to come into existence. What is more, for Rasch, the key problem lies in: »modernity’s unresolved antinomies caused by the lamented inability to think the absolute […] to justify reason rationally or even historically—not to mention dialectically« (2000, 12 – 13). It is here again that the concept of the baroque modern that comes into play as a modeling of history that would enable a rational, historical and dialectical understanding of the process-based emerging origins of the modern. In this light we may need something again like the baroque »absolute«; or, what the French feminist thinker Christine Buci-Glucksmann has argued for in her book on Benjamin and on Charles Baudelaire entitled, Baroque Reason: The Aesthetics of Modernity (1994). For Bryan S. Turner commenting on BuciGlucksmann’s tome, »Baroque Reason« is »essentially a ›theatricization of existence‹ which mobilizes the notions of ambivalence and difference to provide what Buci-Glucksmann calls the ›Reason of the Other‹ which permits us to see the modern world from within« (Turner 1994, 23). This would offer up new sites for the engenderment of contingency and so too of risked blocks of deep value and deep meaning that might shatter the strata of over-codified ones that have become dead wood if not totalitarian. Indeed, Rasch adds, »faith in the authority of reason has gone the way of faith in the authority of God, contingency becomes the transcendental placeholder« (2000, 20). In the foregoing light, it may in the end be the question of what is the contingency of contingency that is the true question to ask in our modern situation. Rasch discourses of

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the complex and fragile order that modernity has achieved [is] perpetually threatened by eschatological visions of reconciliation, emancipation, and truth. Paradox is the sign under which this new order organizes itself, because it must be […] without an origin […] What is to be preserved is not the content of modernity […] but its principle of organization. (Rasch 2000, 25)

As against one possible interpretation of Rasch we do, however, need one critical movement/moment wherein we apprehend the seventeenth-century as the time of the structural origin of modernity. Otherwise, we are merely speaking into the air and condemn ourselves to a kind of ephemeral ahistoricism unable to accept that there is on some level a mechanical-clock element to time. Luhmann himself writes that »we all get older and at the same rate« and »the simple duration of life makes one old« (1990, 40 – 41). Clearly, aging is inevitable and we cannot turn back the clock. Here I am also speaking against those such as Luhmann himself when he once averred in an interview that was published in English in 1991: »Talking about the Enlightenment or modernity will not help.« For it is my contention here, to put the point positively, that we can still talk about Enlightenment or modernity, if only in a more theoretically apt and potent way. For example, the Italian scholar Giorgio Agamben judiciously quotes Benjamin’s notion of origin that I should want to endorse for a more theoretically cogent position concerning the semantic field of the concept of origin that remains a bit problematic in most contexts and definitions: Origin [Ursprung], although an entirely historical category, has […] nothing to do with genesis [Entstehung]. The term origin […] describe[s] that which emerges from the process of becoming and disappearance. Origin is an eddy in the stream of becoming, and in its current it swallows the material involved in the process of genesis. […]. Origin is not, therefore, discovered by the examination of actual findings, but it is related to their history and their subsequent development. (Agamben 1999, 156)

Yes: this happy and acute definatory result is more generally the case for our present theoretical efforts to understand the modern. Now, more from Rasch: as long as God’s throne remains vacant, only differentiation allows for a plurality of observer positions and thus for a plurality of contingent, fallible, antagonistic perspectives […] [modernity’s] divided nature is what enables us even to contemplate alternatives—if not alternatives to, then at least alternatives within, the modernity we inhabit. (2000, 26)

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Thus, thinking of contingency and difference as the structures of modernity is tantamount to comprehending the social fact that ›God’s throne remains vacant‹. Everything turns on this. And the idea of subverting or reforming a system from within is a very baroque reality situation to boot. Consider the classic example within the art system of the cycle of American film noir of 1944 – 58 working within the Hollywood apparatus, which seems to be expanding the power of Hollywood, but is in fact subverting it from within for what is now considered Hollywood’s most creative or rather agent of variability engenderment of film for, in a global reading, world-wide filmic culture. Now, for Moeller, Luhmann’s edifice is indeed »a theory of contingency, not of liberation« (2006, 40). In this sense it may be partly accused indeed (many have already) of highly determinate cynical reason, but that would be going too far, I believe. I defend this claim, for I believe it is rather a simultaneously much more modest and ambitious program over against many a classical tradition of emancipatory thought. It is not cynical reason; it is rather what thought should be all about; alive to increasing understanding of our reality condition. Let it not go unremarked that Luhmann’s conceptual framework also is more descriptive than explanatory, per se, as the Ludwig Wittgenstein of The Philosophical Investigations would have preferred. It is perhaps worth mentioning here what Agamben cites about the concept contingency. »You are familiar with the wicked joke Duns Scotus borrows from Avicenna to prove contingency : ›Those who deny contingency should be tortured until they admit that they could also have not been tortured’« (1999, 38). However eye opening these disparaging remarks, which of course are to be taken as a ›wicked joke,‹ they are not without merit in terms of elucidating the hangover of an ahistorical view of the notion of contingency. Crucially, for Rasch: »Complexity […] becomes not a property of a system but […] the mode of observation. The ›fragmentation‹ of modernity has led to a ›fragmentation‹ of observation, which leaves us with no access to a commonly assumed objective world« (2000, 33). The valorization of fragmentary writing in the last two hundred years in the literary arts (from Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, and Benjamin in German to Maurice Blanchot in French to Thomas Pynchon in English, inter alia) shows this trend. In addition, Rasch writes: »Complexity guarantees contingency […] creates meaning—the difference between potentiality and actuality« (2000, 33). The vertiginous and baroque if not Byzantine complexity of modern society then can offer up new chances for the production of meaning. The concept of complexity may also be said to inform the logic of development of a working definition of the baroque. For the Luhmann of Essays on Self-Reference: »Meaning is not a selective event, but a selective relationship between system and world« (1990, 27). We also read in the same composition from Luhmann of »an opportunity to reconsider

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the relationship between meaning and language and correct the widespread overestimation of the role of language« (1990, 50). This is because for Luhmann meaning requires […] systems whose particular structures […] define additional boundaries within the domain of the linguistically possible. For the realm of meaningful experience and action these are psychic and social systems of the most diverse kinds. (Luhmann 1990, 51)

Comparing the »hard« and »soft« sciences, Luhman sees »the complexity of complexity« as the »core problem« of the former, and »the meaning of meaning« as the principal difficulty the latter. Despite this he asks whether these are »really different issues« (1990, 80). The present essay would submit that they are not, and are instead more a question of the encodifications of forms of sub-systemic and ideological disciplinarization or systematization. It is this sense of the semantic of history of life and of experience in the text that again surfaces in the modern as a baroque phenomenon: »Meaning is […] simply a new and powerful form of coping with complexity under the unavoidable condition of enforced selectivity« (Luhmann quoted in Rasch 2000, 52). In specific, self-selection or ›choosing‹ would activate the effort and the crucial individual and collective force of decision. It also needs to be said that historically, the obsession with meaning has often gone hand in hand with so-called bourgeois or middle class modes of thinking; so, from this perspective one must consider Luhmann part and parcel of that tradition, albeit in a highly theorized if not anti-bourgeois way ; be that as it may, for Luhmann in Essays on Self-Reference, »complexity means the necessity of choosing; contingency, the necessity of accepting risks« (1990, 26). The act of interpretation would be one example of such risk. As Rasch provocatively points out, for Luhmann the »unity of society no longer appears within this society,« and »we live in an ›administered‹ society, if we can read ›administered‹ to mean functionally differentiated« (2000, 101). So here at least one can see a form of rapprochement of Luhmann with his oftarch rival, to wit, the Frankfurt School. In another key, however, for Luhmann in his Theory of Distinctions he speaks of, »the critique of ideology that is always from a holier-than-thou perspective« (1990, 141). Ideology critique of course is of the essence for Frankfurt School theorizing, which it is Luhmann’s concern to attack. And yet is not Luhmann’s tack an ideological version of that history of the concept ideology itself ? One wobbles on the tightrope of the question. Nico Stehr and Gotthard Bechmann assert more precisely in their introduction to Luhmann’s text Risk about the Bielefeld professor’s

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emphasis on differences […] on distinctions, that are […] constructions. The substitution of the subject concept and the transfer of the subject/object differentiation into the distinction between system and environment take Luhmann to a post-ontological theory of society […]. (Bechmann, Stehr 2002, xi)

Hence the notion of »distinctions« as »constructions« that are transposed to »the distinction between system and environment« makes Luhmann a very postHeideggerian ›post-ontological‹ theorist of modernity. It is perhaps in this sense that Luhmann’s relation to philosophy can be compared to Hegel’s relation to religion (as expressed in the Phenomenology of Spirit). For Hegel, religion was, with respect to its highest purpose, a thing of the past. It had reached its end as a satisfactory manifestation of the ›spirit.‹ Neither its semantics nor its general structure could be fully accepted any longer. Religion was in waiting […] for its Aufhebung (›sublation‹)—in the […] threefold sense of continuation, negation, and elevation—in philosophy. (Moeller 2006, 199)

Hand in hand with the foregoing could go what we read from Bechmann and Stehr’s take on what Luhmann lays down in the foundation of the building that is his work in thought: (1) Society does not consist of people. Persons belong to the environment of society. (2) Society is an autopoietic system consisting of communication and nothing else. (3) Society can be adequately understood as world society. Banishing people to the environment of society completes the decentralization of the humanist cosmology. Having been evicted from the center of the universe in the Renaissance, deprived of its unique origin by being placed in the context of evolution by Darwin, and stripped of autonomy and self-control by Freud, that humanity should now be freed from the bonds of society by Luhmann appears to be a consistent extension of this trend. (Bechmann, Stehr 2002, xv)

This places Luhmann in a rather prestigious lineage of Copernicus, of Tycho Brahe, of Galileo, of Johannes Kepler, of Darwin, and of Freud, as his key cultural antecedents. Thus too, Luhmann can say that for him in a neo-Leibnizian and so neo-baroque and neo-monadological point about the said ultra-atomized individual: »Human beings appear to live alongside one another as isolated monads« (2000, 12). Further than this, for Bechmann and Stehr :

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Luhmann’s strict, austere artificial language is […] due […] to the stringency of his theoretical program [… and to his communication that] an adequate modern theory of society requires the sacrifice of the mere pleasure of recognition and the judging of theory construction on its own merits. (2002, 20)

This lack of projective mechanisms of identification (such as species wide identification with other humanoids) is probably the main reason why Luhmann’s work, for all its elegance and theoretical firepower, can be decidedly and remains to this hour distinctly offputting if not upsetting to so many precisely due to the intellectual disquietudes it spawns thereby making some stubbornly conservative readers looking corpse-like; also, not unimportantly, Luhmann’s use of a spirit of artificiality or of artifice may count as a baroque stylistic trait. Also, with respect to the foregoing it is worthy pointing out that along with the charges against Luhmann as a neo-conservative thinker would go the work of the French thinker Jean Baudrillard in his critique of structuralism, insofar as Luhmann extends the insights of structuralism in his own idiosyncratic and creative way in his wide-ranging sense of reference and points of inspiration. As the American scholar Hal Foster put it in his 1996-classic, The Return of the Real, according to Baudrillard, just as the commodity is divided into use and exchange values, so is the sign divided into signified and signifier. Structurally, then, just as the commodity can assume the effects of signification, so can the sign assume the functions of exchange value […] on the basis of this structural chiasmus between commodity and sign he recasts structuralism as a secret ideological code of capitalism […]. (Foster 1996, 92)

No doubt there is a kernel of truth to the foregoing as a supervening structure even today some thirteen years later after the publication of Foster’s judicious tome; there is a sense too in which Luhmann is a kind of entrenched, middle class sort of thinker with at least ostensibly an establishment if not protocapitalist brain, but that may well prove a somewhat superficial, reductionist and so seriously misleading understanding for future generations; yet that Luhmann is likely one major theorist of world society for our age shows Foster’s point that »this structural chiasmus has now become actual« (1996, 92). For Luhmann himself at least, [systems theory] is an international language, not designed to protect specific interests. Contrary to what is commonly thought of it, the focus of modern systems theory is not identity but difference, not control but autonomy, not static but dynamic stability, not planning but evolution.

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(Luhmann 1990, 187)

»Difference,« »autonomy,« »dynamic stability« and »evolution« are thus run up the flag pole of the complex modern. Bechmann and Stehr clarify and emphasize the meaning of evolution in Luhmannian temporality : in which past and future are separated, and which Luhmann terms evolution— definitely not progress, since there is no guiding medium among the various media and the functional differentiation of society has no guiding system […]. (2002, xxi-xxii)

Here at least Luhmann would be on the same side of the ledger as one spirit of Walter Benjamin’s soaring if discomfited angel of history with its back to the future into which it is nevertheless being propelled when we read that there is no progress, merely evolution. Now, to move to Luhmann himself: »Recursively operating […] systems proceed on the basis of the state they have attained. Their own operations are guided by their (immediate) past. They can gain no access to their future. Hence, they move backwards into the future« (2002, 35). This sounds again precisely like one version of Benjamin’s baroque interpreting Angel of History. What is more, it would be hard to believe that Luhmann did not, whether consciously is not at issue, have Benjamin’s exact importance and influence here in mind. Indeed, as for the art system, Luhmann writes in a way related to the foregoing notion of recursivity, »art appears as an articulation of its own selfreference […] it can do whatever it wants so long as it produces self-referential connectivity« (2000, 43). However, Luhmann is quick to note that Hardly any other functional system can compare with art when it comes to integrating the most heterogeneous modes of operation into an autopoietic functional nexus [… indeed,] the history of art suggests that one starts from the difference between genres […]. (2000, 178)

Here the idea surfaces that the study of genre remains truly to be begun and mined in comparative cultural work. Moreover, Luhmann elucidates a point that will perhaps be truly depressing for some (and maybe even intriguingly interesting if not problematic for others) who would ascribe a different function to the aesthetic than that espoused here: By staging and perpetually restaging a form of self-reference […] the art system […] does not need a ›political function,‹ which it never had any chance of successfully

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occupying […] ›democratically‹ […] The art system realizes society in its own realm as an exemplary case [emphasis added] […] Operative closure, the emancipation of contingency, self-organization, poly-contexturality, the hypercomplexity of selfdescriptions [… illumine] the structural fate of modernity. (Luhmann 2000, 309)

There is then at least for Luhmann structurally a kind of magic mimetic power to art, after all, and despite it all (e. g., the only ostensible not particularly actual, anti-art movement in some radical leftist theoretical circles, cf. Guy Debord) in its special capacity to illumine »the structural fate of modernity,« a central notion for Luhmann’s efforts; whence the extreme sense of instability and precariousness in the seventeenth-century finds itself reproduced in the twentieth- and in the early twenty-first century. There is more yet to consider from Luhmann in his Essays on Self-Reference the continuing dissolution of the system becomes a necessary cause of its autopoietic reproduction […] It becomes inherently restless. […]. All structures of social systems have to be based on this fundamental fact of vanishing events, disappearing gestures or words that are dying away. Memory, and then writing, have their function in preserving—not the events, but their structure-generating power […]. (1990, 9)

This core and even foundational emphasis on the restlessness, on the decay and on the ephemerality of events and of change go hand in hand with the overall general dynamic and ultimately even dynamism of a generalizable baroque aesthetics. And Luhmann’s emphasis on the »structure-generating power« of memory and of writing over against their evental status points toward a modeling of modernity complementary to that espoused by recent investigators into the topic area of the event, be it from Deleuze, from Alain Badiou, among others. Also Luhmann writes: »The system can continue its autopoiesis or it can stop it […] To be or not to be, to continue the autopoiesis or not to, serves as an internal representation of the totality of possibilities« (1990, 114). This dare I say Hamletlike state of affairs gives an early baroque dose of drama to Luhmann’s oft rather cold, albeit monumental in a not totally un-baroque way, systems theory. To build on the »to be or not to be« thematic (one could also call it the question of the act of predication vis-”-vis a self or a God) let us have a look at the role of the individual in Luhmann’s theory. For example, Luhmann declares, We should drop the term ›subject‹ (›psychic systems,‹ ›consciousness,‹ ›personal system,‹ perhaps even ›individual‹ would do the job) if we are simply referring to a

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part of reality. How can we conceive of a part of reality as underlying or supporting reality? (1990, 114)

The overthrow of such aforementioned categories derives not least from the sensitive ontological fact that for Luhmann in the less technical formulation of Paul Val¤ry, ›Je suis n¤ plusieurs, et je suis mort un seul’ (Born as several, I die as one). […hence one can see] the individuality of an individual as autopoiesis […] There is […] only self-referential individuality [Further,] cells and societies, maybe physical atoms, certainly immune systems and brains, are all individuals […]. (1990, 117 – 18)

These audacious views show high imagination. Importantly, for Luhmann: the theory of autopoietic systems […] precludes […] humanism [because] there is no autopoietic unity of all the autopoietic systems that compose the human being. Certainly mind and brain never will build one closed, circular, self-referential autopoietic system, because thoughts, as elements of the mind, cannot be identified with single neurophysiological events, as elements of the brain […] to want to be human has no scientific basis. It amounts to sheer dilettantism. (1990, 116 – 17)

This again has proved the source of some bitter objections to Luhmann, and yet I would argue that again Benjamin’s inhuman angel of history precisely points toward such a description of the individual human for a new angel or for a new human. In truth, what Luhmann needs is a sense of the poetic, which Benjamin and Luhmann’s reader-critics themselves can and should provide lest Luhmann’s theoretical brilliance go injudiciously stale, and so little to the purpose turn up from his readers. In my judgement, one example of this would be not to reject humanism, but to build on it, to remodel it, to enhance it. Furthermore, to return to where we began in this chapter, to the classical baroque, Luhmann insists that: The seventeenth century made a twin discovery: the subject and its boredom [Hence,] the subject has to occupy itself with something, be it economic or aesthetic. Motives, then, are to be thought of as filling […] the empty circularity of pure autopoiesis, of the reproduction of the elements of consciousness by elements of consciousness; and boredom corresponds to the thinking of thinking. During the seventeenth century, both the subject and its ennui became socially acceptable self-descriptions. Only the theory of autopoietic, self-referential systems seems […] able to formulate

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this latent unity of the subject and its ennui—a theory of the self-despairing subject, a theory of dynamism achieved through self-desperation […]. (1990, 118)

In wake of the above global-cultural moment, and the fact of the pure circular structure of time, Luhmann soon after this continues in a similar vein: it will no longer be possible to use the […] distinctions between reason, will, and feeling. They have to be replaced by the distinction between autopoiesis and structure […] knowledge about consciousness, meaning, language, and […] ›internal speech‹ will have to be reformulated. There is no dual or even pluralistic self […] no personal identity distinct from social identity. These […] are late nineteenthcentury inventions […] semantic reactions to the facts of a complex society. (1990, 118)

No more »distinction between reason, will, and feeling«: we need instead »autopoiesis and structure« for the baroque or neo-baroque modern. This is a highly substantial claim with which we shall sooner or later for Luhmann have to come to terms in order to apprehend the individual as autopoietic system and even too the seventeenth-century baroque as the nucleus given to modernity ; in other words, we need to think beyond our merely academic frameworks that are so often outsourced by global capital and so prejudiced against thinking in big terms. Certainly in a baroque modeling and apprehension of the social and of the economic, this is the case. The differential baroque unity of the relations of the modern system would be its self-reference as a highly baroque operation and diachronic contingent period of unstable history. In order to understand society from within one must take Luhmann’s theoretical edifice as an allegory of the modern on which to build in a way that would do economic, existential, intellectual and ontological justice to Buci-Glucksmann’s Walter Benjamin who revalues allegory as a mode of writing, the principle of an aesthetic of modernity, the rising up of a misunderstood past […] Allegories are always ›allegories of oblivion‹, for through them is expressed the unfreedom of men and women, and no writing which sides with the victors’ history, or which, even from the Left, postulates an evolutionary continuity, has ever been able to reveal that infinite servitude. (Buci-Glucksmann 1994, 46 – 47)

Hence beyond the »evolutionary continuity« of the Luhmannian text one must consider the allegorical and his work in thought as a way of increasing under-

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standing about a badly understood past because not least of the cheapening of the operations and of the cultural products of the seventeenth-century. Luhmann sums up the current state of affairs: »It seems to be the case that not all functional systems have reached the degree of autonomous differentiation that allows autopoietic self-reproduction« (1990, 192). Benjamin’s angel of history would probably find a kind of redemptive happiness (a highly complex thing given Benjamin’s understanding of both the destructive and the productive elements as operations at work in redemption) if such a state of affairs were attained. The individuation of the individual would, as above-noted, be one such autopoietic subsystem. Also for Luhmann, [a]s against Adorno it is a question here not of ›autonomy vis-”-vis society,‹ but of an autonomy within society; we see the social nature of art not in negativity, in an ›oppositional position towards society,‹ but in the fact that emancipation for a specific function is only possible within the society. (1990, 193)

Hence too for Rasch’s Luhmann »the threat to modernity is dedifferentiation« (2000, 167). This is the snare to avoid: hyper-homogenization, hyper-normalization and so on. Given the foregoing spotlights one form of complexity, which is to say, of risk, of contingency, and of meaning, for the world of modernity would be that of selfdifferential, multi-colouredness, as a way of articulating ever-more modes of functional differentiation, which accords to what the world both asks for and needs today in our arguably rather unpotentialized gloomy times; or, what JeanLuc Nancy calls the plausible »glomicity […] of the market« (2007, 37). Would it not be a sign of increasing functional differentiation for the world to be open to, and to throw the high beam on, the multipronged-variable-colouredness of a functionally-differentiated reality for the unfolding of a more genuine dialectical canon of plural baroque reasons of self-differential risk, contingency, meaning and complexity? Luhmann’s theoretical edifice surely can be seen as one such allegory of such a process for which the world would submit an application if not outright cry out. More generally, and to sum up, one might say that the concepts structure, system and contingency are what Luhmann’s »super-theory« (Moeller 2006) offers up for a superior baroque rationality for thinking human destiny. His work seems even a good example of what Buci-Glucksmann writes of Benjamin’s famous thesis number nine from his Theses on the Philosophy of History : the metaphor of the Angel […] roots the text in a border zone beyond and beneath the human. This places Benjamin close to Kafka […] Besides, Benjamin himself states

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that he has made his own ›Kafka’s formulation of the categorical imperative: act in such a way that the Angel has something to do.‹ (1994, 44)

The foregoing is precisely what Luhmann’s writings set his interpreters out to do, to start up a fresh dialogue about the creation of a world that makes sense from the point of view of functionally differentiated sub-systems, of the semantics of meaning, and of the reasons of rationality, all in the service of a redescription of modernity that can only be changed from within not least due to the social fact that the human being as classically conceived has vanished from within, giving »the Angel something to do« in the search for different blocks of variability, of functionality and of meaning for a novel human and original corpus of rationalities. Both the aforesaid, and the desire to change something in the received definition of the modern, constitute the twinned conviction out of which this piece essays to contribute its own basic theses.

References: Agamben, Giorgio (1999) Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy, ed., trans., intro. Daniel Heller-Roazen, Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press. Bechmann, Gotthard, Nico Stehr (2002) »Introduction,« in Niklas Luhmann, Risk: A Sociological Theory, New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction. Buci-Glucksmann, Christine (1994) Baroque Reason: The Aesthetics of Modernity, trans. Patrick Camiller, intro. Bryan S. Turner, London: Sage. Foster, Hal (1996) The Return of the Real, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Lacan, Jacques (2007) The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, trans. Russell Grigg, New York: Norton. Luhmann, Niklas (1990) Essays on Self-Reference, New York: Columbia University Press. Luhmann, Niklas (1998) Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy, trans. Jeremy Gaines and Doris L. Jones, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, Niklas (1998) Observations on Modernity, trans. William Whobrey, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, Niklas (2000) Art as a Social System, trans. Eva M. Knodt, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, Niklas (2000) The Reality of the Mass Media, trans. Kathleen Cross, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, Niklas (2002) Risk: A Sociological Theory, trans. Rhodes Barrett, intro. Nico Stehr and Gotthard Bechmann, New Brunswick: Aldine Transactions. Luhmann, Niklas (1995) Social Systems, trans. John Bednarz, Jr., with Dirk Baecker, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, Niklas (2002) Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity, ed. and intro. William Rasch, trans. Joseph O’Neil, Elliott Schreiber, Kerstin Behnke and William Whobrey, Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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Moeller, Hans-Georg (2006) Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems, Chicago: Open Court. Nancy, Jean-Luc (2007) The Creation of the World; or, Globalization, trans., intro. FranÅois Raffoul and David Pettigrew, Albany : SUNY Press. Rasch, William (2000) Niklas Luhmann’s Modernity : The Paradoxes of Differentiation, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Turner, Bryan S. (2004) »Introduction,« in Buci-Glucksmann, Christine, Baroque Reason: The Aesthetics of Modernity, trans. Patrick Camiller, London: Sage.

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Martin Prochzka

Structuralism and History

A long time ago, first Claude L¤vi-Strauss and later Hayden White envisaged the possibility that structuralist approach could find a balance between the two ways of structuring historical material: paradigmatic and syntagmatic. If the former prevails, histories are fashioned according to archetypal, mythological narratives, basic genres (comedy, romance, tragedy, satire) or paradigmatic figures of speech (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony). The latter aspires to find causal links between innumerable facts, events and particular narratives. Both approaches are related, as L¤vi-Strauss points out, in a paradoxical way : the more general the narratives or the laws, the closer history approaches mythology or ideology. And the greater the number and diversity of particular facts, events or narratives, the nearer history is to entropy. According to L¤vi-Strauss, to resolve this paradox would mean to identify a central area in which these paradigmatic and syntagmatic perspectives inteprenetrate and can be synthetized. This central area is marked by the originally phenomenological concept of historicity, which, according to L¤vi-Strauss, is a synthesis arising from comparative study of common features of cultures and their historical narratives. The problem of this historicity is that its coherence is not a mere product of the comparison of individual histories, but of a mythological approach based on a specific use of language, which L¤vi-Strauss describes as a shift to the metaphorical pole of historical discourse. Similarly, Hayden White emphasizes the importance of what Giambattista Vico had called »poetic history,« which uses the productive potential of principal rhetoric figures not only to structure (or – as he says – »emplot«) historical narratives, but even to fashion and contextualize historical facts. As a result, when some representative structuralists try to deal with history, they seem to resort to mythological or poetical methods. In order to assume a synchronic perspective, they shift the focus from history to »historicity.« However, historicity is, as Derrida writes, »difficult to acknowledge.« In Speech and Phenomena (1973, 52) he connects it with an »ideality« given by »the possibility of repetition.« Later, in The Gift of Death, he discusses historicity (and Jan

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Patocˇka’s interpretation of it) in ethical terms, as the responsibility for the past, the future or the other, which is linked with the self, the nation, the state, etc., by historical events. And since the ethics of responsibility »often claims to separate itself, as ethics, from religious revelation, it is even difficult to tie it closely to a history of religion« (Derrida 1995, 5).1 Despite this »historicity must be admitted to,« which implies that it must remain the »problem of history,« (1995, 5) a problem that is never to be resolved. History, says Derrida commenting on Patocˇka’s Heretical Essays, »can be neither a decidable object nor a totality capable of being mastered, precisely because it is tied to responsibility, to faith, and to the gift« (1995, 5). Since it resists objectification and closure, history cannot be converted into a system which could be studied by a structuralist method. The effort to get out of this impasse is typical of the new historicist approach, focusing on the links between individual narratives, events and objects and structuring them by simple yet exceedingly versatile patterns: circulation, oscillation, substitution, exchange, etc. Another, very traditional means of structuring history is periodization. Rather than establishing large and self-enclosed areas of historical knowledge, it can be approached as a certain way of structuring a dynamic flux of events in a linear (or cyclical) time. Let me now more closely examine the origins of period as a structural pattern. Then I will focus on a representative response of the Prague School to the problem of structuring history by periodization in the work of Felix Vodicˇka. A specific use of the Greek philosophical term peras (meaning »boundary,« »limit« or even »number«) is characteristic of Aristotle’s treatment of prose, metre and language structures Chapters 8 and 9 (on Rhythms and Period) of the third book of his Rhetoric (2004, 131 ff; 1409a). Aristotle first distinguishes rhythm as a structuring principle, which can both differentiate and synthetize the individual »impressions« (that is, meanings or aesthetic effects) of a speech. Although rhythm first seems to be distinct from metre, which is artificial and therefore has a negative impact on the plausibility of the prose utterance (its resemblance to authentic speech), later it becomes clear that rhythm actually requires metre as a sort of internal limit, balance or norm. This explains why Aristotle seeks the golden mean between a heroic solemn rhythm, such as hexametre in poetry, and simple, ordinary speech (characterised by iambic 1 Derrida comments on the conclusion of Patocˇka’s essay »Is the Technological Civilization a Civilization in Decline, and If So Why?« in Heretical Essays on the Philosophy of History :»It might also be that the question of the decline of civilization has been badly put. Civilization does not of itself exist. The question would rather be if historical man wants yet acknowledge history.« (Patocˇka 1990, 126)

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rhythms) or hasty speech (of which trochaic rhythms are typical). He finds the paean (paian), a »hidden metre,« as he says, a structural pattern based on the optimum numerical value of all the three major metres (iamb, trochee and dactyl). Unlike the trochee and the iamb, where the ratio between long and short syllables is 2 (2 divided by 1), and unlike the dactyl, where the ratio is 1 (2 divided by 2 – two short syllables), the paean is characterized by the ratio 3:2, which is 1.5, an arithmetic average of the values of the trochee and the iamb on the one hand, and dactyl on the other. It is not suprising that the paean can function both as a metre and as a rhytm, and determine the articulation of what we now call the segments of utterance. One modification of the paean determines the beginning, another, the end of a period. As a result, the paean becomes a central device structuring the period both as a meaningful and aesthetically pleasing whole resembling authentic speech. It is important to add that some forms of this sound pattern, the so-called second and third paean, have never existed in Greek poetry : they are the possibilities given by the rules of Aristotle’s system or structural variants generated by it. In Chapter 9 of Rhetoric, period is no longer defined as a structure based on mathematical principles but as product of aesthetic and logical totalization – it is a »compact« utterance, which must be pleasing, »easy to follow« and »to remember.« The subdivision of period – called »member« (kolon) – is rhythmical by its nature but corresponds to the logical structure of the period based on antithesis (Aristotle 2004, 133 ff; 1409 a-b). Moreover, it is also a syntactic device, as in the schemes called »antithesis, parison repeating the same grammatical structure in successive clauses], and homeoteleuton [repeating the same endings of clauses]« (Aristotle 2004, 135; 1410a).2 In this way, mathematical structuring is not only seen as the source of a totalizing aesthetic effect and logical clarity but also as an utterly practical, mnemotechnic device. To sum up, in the Aristotelian, teleogical, approach to totalization, time is transformed into empirical sequences (rhythmic patterns), which in turn are formalised by mathematical means (nowadays called optimalisation). The totality of Aristotelian period is no longer given by the supreme authority of a myth or a religion, as in Benedict Anderson’s »simultaneity along time,« but by the intrinsic balance, which can be related to what Anderson calls the »homogeneous empty time […] marked […] by temporal coincidence« (Anderson 1991, 24).3 2 »Parison« is also called »parisosis« and »homeoteleuton« »paromoeosis.« 3 Cf. Benjamin (1969, 261) linking this notion of time with that of historical progress: »The concept of the historical progress of mankind cannot be sundered from the concept of its progression through a homogeneous, empty time. A critique of a concept of such a progression must be the basis of any criticism of the concept of progress itself.«

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These features of Aristotle’s concept may be said to foreshadow some structuralist approaches to systems, whose balance is alternately disrupted and regained in the course of time, such as the notions of the dynamic nature of the language system and of the »national literature« discussed by the representatives of the Prague School including Jan Mukarˇovsky´, Bohuslav Havrnek and especially Felix Vodicˇka. Vodicˇka’s theory of literary historical periods explained in his principal work, The Structure of Development, is characterized by a certain ambiguity. On the one hand, a period in literary history should be »an autonomous field,« given by »dominant elements of literary structures and forms,« that is, chiefly by what Mukarˇovsky´, in an earlier study about Czech verse, calls »the immanent development« of a principal genre. On the other hand, Vodicˇka derives the totality of a literature from the totality of the »community of the language users«, that is a group of people using the same language and contributing to its development. In the passage I am quoting from he also refers to »the relations between codified literary language and poetic language« but also to totally »extrinsic aspects,« such as »the period morals and morality in literature« (Vodicˇka 1998, 69) This, however, contradicts the previous assumption that literary history must have its own, »intrinsic« periodization method (1998, 66). On the one hand, Vodicˇka mentions the so-called »literary tasks« (68), given intrinsically in terms of aesthetic values and art forms and generated as potentialities in the course of the immanent development of the system. On the other hand, the system ultimately derives its existence from the empirical status of language as a »community« of its users, which in turn is seen as the origin of its principal unit, the totality of a »national literature« (73). The latter aspect also implies that the well-known term of the Prague school, »concretization« (taken from Roman Ingarden) is not only the product of the »immanent development« of literature but also of deliberate efforts of certain privileged members of society, namely literary critics, and their ideological orientations. These representatives of the literary public are seen as setting tasks based on the empirical understanding of life or derived from »ideological postulates« (Vodicˇka 1998, 56). In contrast to Aristotle, whose notion of balance is based on mathematical optimalisation and the traditional concept of the golden mean, Prague structuralism, when dealing with history, is not able to arrive at a unifying principle of totalization. Vodicˇka, therefore, also has to admit that literary historians must focus on the relationship of »heteronomous elements to the immanent conditions of the new organization of the literary norm.« This also implies a constant tension between the »real,« or »immanent,« norm, and the »alleged« norm, based on the postulates of critics (Vodicˇka 1998, 59). The theoretical, »dialectical« resolution of this tension cannot be reached, nonetheless for Vodicˇka it

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exists as a given, practical task: if we disregarded this internal dynamic, »we would not obtain the superior notion of historical system,« which is above »statistical enumeration of individual qualities« (1998, 69; my emphasis). In other words, the Prague School can grasp periods only as means of pragmatic systemisation of heterogeneous material, consisting of a number of phenomena which are arbitrary from the point of view of intrinsic development of literature, whose totality, however, is determined only ideologically and empirically, by the notions of »national literature« and of »the community of language users.« This tangle of essence and sign, concept and word, pragmatism and idealism was, in fact, previously unravelled by Nietzsche. According to Gilles Deleuze (1983, 43 – 44), Nietzsche saw the problem not as that of distinguishing between reality and appearance, inside and outside, being and its representation, but between the quantity and quality of interacting forces.4 In Derridean terms, boundaries can be understood as sites where the »difference of quantity« of these forces »counts more than the contents of quantity, more than the absolute magnitude itself« (Derrida 1973, 148). As a result, there are »two very different conceptions of the limit, one as original matrix, the other as structural function« (Deleuze, Guattari 1983, 171). These notions are conflated, if not confused, in the Prague school approach. On the one hand, Vodicˇka cannot do without a totalizing notion of time, on the other hand, he cannot totalize time intrinsically in its present moments, which are split between the possibilities of the development of aesthetic form and pragmatic, ideologically or empirically formulated, »tasks« of literary development. 4 »Forces have quantity, but they also have the quality which corresponds to their difference in quantity : the qualities of force are called ›active‹ and ›reactive‹. We can see that the problem of measuring forces will be delicate because it brings the art of qualitative interpretations into play. […] If a force is inseparable from its quantity, it is no more separable from the other forces which it relates to. Quantity itself is therefore inspearable from a difference in quantity,« that is, from quality. »What interests [Nietzsche] primarily, from the standpoint of of quantity itself, is the fact that differences in quantity cannot be reduced to equality. Quality is distinct from quantity but only because it is that aspect of quantity that cannot be equalised, that cannot be equalised out in the difference between quantities. Difference in quantity is therefore, in one sense, the irreducible element of quantity and in another sense the element which is irreducible to quantity itself. Quality is nothing but difference in quantity and corresponds to it each time forces enter into interaction« (Deleuze 1983, 43 – 44). Cf. Derrida (1973, 148). In contrast to Deleuze’s emphasis on the irreducibility of the qualitative aspect to the equality of forces, Derrida points out the irreducibility of the difference iself: »one of the terms appears as the differance of the other, the other as ›differed‹ within the systematic ordering of the same […] It is out of the unfolding of this ›same‹ as differance that the sameness of difference and of repetition is presented in the eternal return« (1973, 149). Cf. also Deleuze (1996, 133).

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An attempt to resolve this dilemma by imagining a process of the objectification of the hypothetical reader’s desire by the influence of the internal properties of the genre was made by Hans Robert Jauss, who transformed an earlier notion of the »horizon of expectation« used by Popper, Mannheim and Gombrich, into a structuring device of the literary process. Periods can thus determined by the degree of dynamic tension between the readers’expectations and the intrinsic development of literary forms and aesthetic values. While being mainly »a tool for historical contextualization and interpretation« (Holub 1993), Jauss theory also points beyond its phenomenological grounding to the basic issue of periodization: setting boundaries. Let me conclude by pointing out a general feature of periodization (and, in fact, all classification) discussed by Deleuze and Guattari in their Anti-Oedipus. The authors seem to give a plausible explanation of the pragmatic nature of the boundary as a specific power structure regulating desire by moving it »in the direction of more intense and more adequate investments of the social field.« This results in »an effective reduction of the forces of desire to Oedipus, to a father’s name, in a grotesque triangle […]. Oedipus is indeed the limit, but the displaced limit that now passes into the interior of the socius […].« It is »always colonization pursued by other means, it is the interior colony, and we shall see that even here at home, where we Europeans are concerned, it is our intimate colonial education« (Deleuze, Guattari 1983, 170). In other words, Deleuze and Guattari seem to suggest that periodization can be explained, in Nietzschean terms, as a technique of the reduction and control of the forces of desire. This is related to completely different notions of time than those we used to work with so far. In The Logic of Sense Deleuze claims that there are two readings of time that imply certain value judgements: In the first time called the Chronos, the past and the future are always in relation to a certain present. This implies: (a) the relativity of individual presents and the supremacy of God’s presence as the circle of all presents, which encompasses the past and the future. In this way, all linear time is necessarily cyclical. (b) the corporeality of the present, which is the measure for the action of bodies and the working of causes. The unity of all causes is called the Cosmos, which is created by the relative movement of individual presents, each of them referring to a vast present encompassing it, and simultaneously by the absolute movement to the vastest of all presents. (c) the regulated movement of all presents. Where does it receive its measure from? From God? And what if it is left to an accident? (cf. Deleuze 1990, 162 – 63)

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The answer must therefore be sought elsewhere, in another interpretation of time. This reading is called by Deleuze the Aion and explained as becoming – a pure and measureless change of qualities. Bodies lose their measure and become simulacra. The Chronos has become a break. Its hierarchized domain is uprooted and overturned. Tormented by schizophrenia (bursting asunder and contracting), manic depression (delirious future, delirious past), the Chronos wants to die but it has already been replaced by the Aion, which is characterised by : (a) the process of division and subdivision of time intervals. Each past and future divide their present and subdivide it ad infinitum into pasts and futures. This does not effect the change yet: the change is produced by orientation to the surface, the incorporeal events and their split, heterogeneous nature. This implies a radical difference in the perception of the present: an instant instead of a now. (b) the surface effects, which point to the ground of language as pure impersonality and pre-individual existence. The line of the Aion is a boundary between language and bodies, a boundary of a different kind than that constructed in the Aristotelian period or structuralist approaches to periodization, both of which aim to collapse the difference between corporeality of bodies and incorporeality of language. (c) its appearance as the »third present,« apart from the two presents of the Chronos, with which we are familiar from the former reflexions on peridozation (that of actualization, or concretization, and that of »the immanent development«). The present of the Aion, Deleuze concludes, is without thickness and depth: it is the present of the actor, of »counteractualization«: representing the instant as a paradoxical moment, a quasi-cause. It is the »pure perverse« (neither subversive nor actualized) »moment.« (cf. Deleuze 1990, 164 – 68) Analyzing the uses of periodization, I now seem to have replaced the desire of the presence of history in our lives with the dubious pleasure taken in the illusion of stage acting, which has already lost its didactic, or rather edificatory, function, epitomised in the Renaissance metaphor of the theatrum mundi. In winding up this chapter the obvious question arises: What is to be done? Can we endlessly totter between historical irony and reification or ideologization of history? One of the attempts to revaluate historical irony as the self-reflexivity of the work of the historian, made by Hayden White, ended in an impasse, when his chief assumption of the arbitrariness of the choice of emplotment was disputed with respect to diverse historical approaches to the Holocaust (Kansteiner 1993).

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References: Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London and New York: Verso. Aristotle (2004) Rhetoric, trans. W. Rhys Roberts, Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, Inc. Benjamin, Walter (1969) Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, New York: Schocken Books. Deleuze, Gilles (1990) The Logic of Sense, ed. Constantin V. Boundas, trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles (1983), Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans Hugh Tomlinson, New York: Columbia University Press Deleuze, Gilles (1996), Proust et les signes, Paris: Quadrige/PUF. Deleuze, Gilles, F¤lix Guattari (1983) Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen Lane, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Derrida, Jacques (1973) Speech and Phenomena, trans. David B. Allison, Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. Derrida, Jacques (1995) The Gift of Death, trans. David Wills, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Holub, Robert C. (1993) »Horizon of Expectation,« in Encyclopaedia of Literary Theory : Approaches, Scholars, Terms, ed. Irena R. Makaryk, Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 553. Kansteiner, Wulf (1993) »Hayden White’s Critique of the Writing of History,« History and Theory, 32.3: 287 – 89. Patocˇka, Jan (1990) Kac„rˇsk¤ eseje o filosofii deˇjin [Heretical Essays on the Philosophy of History], Praha: Academia. Vodicˇka, Felix (1998) Struktura vy´voje [Structure of Development], second edition, Prague: Dauphin.

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Mark Amsler

Jakobson’s Dominant, Hyperliteracies, and Structures of History

Within academic criticism and critical theory, Pierre Bourdieu’s critique of structuralism (objectivism) and existentialism (subjectivism) has served as a powerful foundational moment for distinguishing structuralism from poststructuralism. Beginning in the mid 1970 s, Bourdieu argued that mainstream structuralist theory in the human sciences (literary theory and criticism, art criticism, social thought) was flawed for making three assumptions: 1) that sign relations are univocal, 2) that individual actors and local groups alone do not constitute powerful centers of meaning, cultural signification, and change, and 3) that structuralist theory and methods are objectively distinct from the objects and activities which interpreters are interested in (Bourdieu 1987, Bourdieu 1999). For Bourdieu, these structuralist assumptions presumptively privilege theory and disciplinary knowledge as opposed to the intentions of individual or collective agents, the local meanings of concrete actions and things, and the power of personal knowledge. Bourdieu consistently criticizes structuralism’s claim to explain behaviours, texts, and signifiers as surface manifestations of cultural universals rather than as serving particular functions. He also admonishes structuralists, especially sociologists, for claiming to have special theoretical access to systems of creativity and meaning. For Bourdieu, the structuralist critic and structuralist theory in general must be resituated and contextualized as an interested rather than objective. Despite the clamor for critical reflexivity in the wake of the Structuralist Symposium at The Johns Hopkins University in 1966 and the subsequent rise of deconstruction and poststructuralism, contemporary theory and practice in the human sciences continue to be haunted by the theoretical and interpretive questions Bourdieu raises. Responding to L¤vi-Strauss and Roman Jakobson’s collaborative readings of poetry and myth and other structuralist interpretations which seek to claim methodological power, social theorists, art and literary critics, and semioticians have increasingly framed structuralism’s ongoing problem with agency, situated meaning, and change in terms of Bourdieu’s critique of structuralism as a totalizing program which seeks to control meaning

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by absorbing the specificity and historicity of human activities and cultural forms within a monolithic grid of binary sign relations and theoretically abstracted cultural norms. L¤vi-Strauss comes in for especially heavy criticism when he reduces the Oedipus myth to the opposition between overvaluing and undervaluing blood relations. Bourdieu argues that L¤vi-Strauss denies the narrative any social function or specificity or surface signification. Bourdieu also points out (rightly) that many structuralist analyses adopt without question Saussure’s model of the linguistic sign (signifier + signified = sign as a social relation) and his absolute distinction between synchrony and diachrony. In doing so, they miss considering how privileging linguistic oppositions and semiotic binaries might distort or foreshorten the complexity and range of possibilities within human behaviours, especially those procedures and interpretive frames which construct and maintain textual coherence, aesthetic novelty, dominant meaning, or cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984). In structuralist theory, Bourdieu turns Saussure-inspired economic models for human activity, academic disciplines, and dominant ways of knowing into a critical reflexivity. He complicates the idea of disciplinary »interest,« »capital,« and »exchange« by connecting specific theories and cultural norms with economic stratification, material power, and cultural hegemony (1987, 124 – 31). Bourdieu critiques structuralism for failing to reflect sufficiently on how its cultural and theoretical assumptions are implicated in the production of cultural hegemony and dominant academic knowledge: »Il s’agit, en chaque cas, d’observer la forme que revÞt, ” un moment donn¤ de l’histoire, cet ensemble d’institutions historiques qui constituent un champ ¤conomique determin¤, et la forme que revÞt l’int¤rÞt ¤conomique dialectiquement li¤ ” ce champ« (1987, 125; cf. 132 – 43). Interestingly, in this last passage, Bourdieu twice uses the term histoire/historique. Bourdieu’s concatentation of dialectic, economic determinism, and historical situatedness pose a specific challenge to structuralism’s supposed ahistoricity. In this chapter, I want to reconsider the relations between structuralism and situated or historical meaning by rethinking Bourdieu’s critique of objective (na€ve) structuralism and his theorizing of interest, agency, and practice. To do this, I will focus not on economic models of social action, as Bourdieu does, but on the Prague School’s theories of the »dominant« and markedness, in particular Jakobson’s linguistic theory of markedness and the signe z¤ro. No one will accuse Jakobson of adopting Saussure’s, Peirce’s, or any other theory of the sign in a naive or unreflective way. The Prague Circle presented its own critique of structuralism from within rather than outside structuralist analysis. They incorporated a critical awareness of the complexities of sign systems and linguistic relations into their readings of aesthetic, folklore, and material texts. How then does Jakobson’s theory of markedness offer a

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different critique of structuralism from within, one associated with a critical understanding of literacy and textuality as situated practice? First, I’ll discuss how Jakobson’s theory of markedness and the »dominant« constitute a more complex critique of structuralism than is generally acknowledged. Then I’ll show how markedness produces a theory of literacy as »hyperliteracy« and a way of reimagining Bourdieu’s habitus as the space of linguistic difference as well as embodied activity. The productive tension between Bourdieu’s theory of practice and Jakobson’s theory of markedness opens for us a theoretical space for thinking about how some textual practices make the world we know and can know while others offer alternative worlds, heterotopias, which reflect and remake that world in other spaces contained within the dominant space. To concretize my reading of Jakobson, I will discuss some alternative hyperliterate textualities in Dante, the Caribbean writer Louise Bennett, Wallace Stevens, and the New Zealand educator Sylvia Ashton-Warner. As practices, literacies exist in relation to one another and as part of broader social organizations. There is no single Literacy from which all individual practices and attitudes derive. Hyperliterate practices remake »dominant« and »marker« literacies by articulating the differences – silences, gaps, and unacknowledged or repressed possibilities – retained within dominant structures. Hyperliteracies and Jakobson’s theory of markedness release within structuralist theory heterotopes of agency, hope, and resistance to social dominance, spaces which are intended or unintended consequences of literacy. Jakobson proposed different definitions of the »dominant.« His best known definition first appeared in the opening paragraph of his 1935 Czech lectures on semiotics (first available in English translation in 1971) the dominant is »the focusing component of the work of art: it rules, determines, and transforms the remaining components. It is the dominant which guarantees the integrity of the structure« (Jakobson 1987, 41). Various forms of writing and individual texts foreground or deploy linguistic and rhetorical features which from the formalist or structural point of view are perceived to govern or integrate the work as a work. Functionally, the dominant is the principal feature of textual cohesion, bringing together other elements of a text around a key trope, syntactic parallelism, metrical pattern, clusters of phonetic associations, or other cohesive devices. Jakobson argued that the dominant linguistic aspect of poetry is phonetic or phonological arrangement, the sound pattern which marks a text as a particular kind of poetry. The metrical pattern of a limerick or an English folk ballad is easily distinguishable from that of an English sonnet or Latin epic hexameter because such patterns are shared by communities of speakers. We perceive metrical verse as acoustically different from blank or free verse, stanzaic verse as different from couplets or long lines. Bob Dylan’s enigmatic statement »Every rhyme is true« reproduces Jakobson’s claim that poetry as poetry, that is,

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as systematic textual production, foregrounds phonological associations as the dominant ordering strategy for making a text meaningful and readable as connected discourse. Correspondingly, other kinds of texts are marked by different linguistic dominants. In realist narrative, for example, whether in prose or verse, linguistic transparency and denotative reference are foregrounded as the dominant. Language is treated as a conduit for conveying direct knowledge of reality. The realist textual dominant shapes our interpretation of what is an accurate rendering of the world »out there« by relying on the socially shared belief that the language, images, or design of the text give us direct access to that world. But if we ask, as poststructural and neopragmatic readings or reflexive sociology do, whether our belief in a transparent representational system precedes our interpretation of the world »out there« to which the text refers, then realist narrative’s dominant is destabilized and textual cohesion disrupted. A textual dominant constitutes a principal of structure and also marks the historically situated horizon of expectations and temporally-specific assumptions of audiences. Both Bourdieu and Jakobson argue in different ways that the dominant is always historically situated. Saussure similarly argued that synchronic order is always located somewhere along the diachronic axis. For example, the U.S. film Hoop Dreams (1994, dir. Steve James) was not nominated for an Academy Award that year as a »documentary« because the judges determined that the film was too slick, too well-made, and used too many film techniques and shots associated with so-called »fictional« Hollywood films and sports marketing promotions such as NFL Highlights. In the judges’ eyes, the film’s pattern of associations and the directorial intentions they were supposed to manifest did not align with those of canonical documentary films. The Academy judges seemed to argue that the film was »not documentary film-like enough« because its narrative structure and image-making techniques did not conform sufficiently to the judges’ expectations for what are the dominant aspects of documentary film. The question of the dominant is both quantitative and qualitative. We might describe the judges’ documentary dominant as: a film, however ›creative,‹ about the ›real‹ world and ›real‹ people represented with film techniques which do not draw from the Hollywood repertoire of commercially produced, emotionally manipulating stories, clich¤d images, and aesthetically designed shots, sets, costumes, and camera angles. Hoop Dreams was not enough like Nanook of the North and other canonical documentary films and too much like other kinds of Hollywood cinematic fiction and corporate sports self-promotion. But perhaps the problem is not that of a single associational pattern but of a single dominant. We need to think of the dominant in terms of multiplicity as well as repetition. Hoop Dreams is not a flawed documentary nor a hybrid film

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but a film with more than one »dominant« or »foregrounding« aspect. While the nominating judges regarded the film as an anomaly, later film makers and audiences have read Hoop Dreams as a new model and a different horizon of expectations for how documentaries can be made and understood. The Academy judges’ understanding of Hoop Dreams coincides with the usual way Jakobson’s theory of the dominant is explained, in terms of poetic foregrounding and formal cohesion. The textual dominant is a feature, what Jakobson calls »one leading value,« which controls all other aspects of a text (1987, 42). The notion of a »leading value« like the dominant derives from Russian Formalist and Prague Circle theories of »normal« language. Their description of »ordinary« language, validated by appeals to everyday usage and denotation, is the benchmark of neutrality for calibrating other linguistic usages. Ordinary language is taken to be a zero sign, from which individual texts depart by foregrounding or marking a dominant linguistic aspect which calls attention to the text as a particular arrangement, a distortion of normative linguistic or signifying discourse which disrupts readers’ expectations of what can or should be stated »normally.« Prose is more metonymic and conforming to a realist representation of the world; poetry is more metaphoric and given to distorting our accepted ways of reading and seeing the world. Prose is representational; poetry is revolutionary, or at least potentially so. The Academy nominating judges adopt a kind of zero sign theory of genre and form when they interpret Hoop Dreams as not documentary enough because the film does not sufficiently conform to the cinematic conventions for formal neutrality. Jakobson’s theory of poetics based on the dominant and the Prague Circle’s linguistic theory of ordinary and deviant usage has given rise to a backlash in poetic and critical theory, especially against structuralism. Jakobson’s theory of poetics has been criticized for being ahistorical or politically disengaged, for being too formalist, too synchronic, too bound up with demonstrating the cohesion and multi-level integration of individual texts, or too willing to privilege verse and poetic discourse over narrative. In other words, Jakobson’s poetic theory and his definition of the dominant have been criticized for being too poetic or too »structuralist,« even though structuralism’s methodological successes have in fact had more to do with narratives than with lyrics or drama. But Jakobson defined the »dominant« in more than one way. Jakobson’s other definition pre-emptively addressed his critics and subtly complicates the very theory of poetics he proposed. He proposed this second, less cited definition of the »dominant« later in the same essay based on his 1935 Czech lectures. This second definition of the »dominant« is more historically and culturally contextualized, although still structural and synchronic: »We may seek a dominant not only in the poetic work of an individual artist and not only in the poetic canon, the set of norms of a given poetic school, but also in the art of a given

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epoch, viewed as a particular whole« (1987, 42). This definition is part of structuralism’s program to treat cultural formations and historical periods as themselves like texts or systems. On the face of it, this passage repeats aspects of his earlier definition of the »dominant,« but Jakobson shifts the focus from individual texts or artistic oeuvres to the epoch or historical period. From the structuralist point of view, we can read Mannerist poetry and painting, Romantic art and writing, or postmodern architecture and electronic writing as texts whose integrity, cohesiveness, and structural hierarchy of features are ordered by a dominant »set of norms« which distinguish one artistic movement or period from another. Periodization and stylistics are staples of the disciplines of art history, narrative history, and literary history, and they organize much scholarship in the humanities. What Jakobson does is offer a structuralist reading of situated culture and social practices as texts which cohere around a dominant theme, set of tropes, or representational conventions. But how does one period become distinct from another? Structuralist and poststructuralist readings always come up against the problem of linearity, sequentiality, and change. Jakobson’s essay on the dominant and its two definitions of the »dominant« show how at least some aspects of structuralist linguistics and semiotics were already post. Jakobson’s second definition of the dominant is tensely associated with his first definition as the foregrounded aspect in a text. As he and Tynyanov had pointed out in their provocative but still underrated short 1928 essay, »Problems in the Study of Literature and Language«: The [Saussurean] opposition between synchrony and diachrony was an opposition between the concept of the system and the concept of evolution; thus it loses its importance in principle as soon as we recognize that every system necessarily exists as an evolution, whereas, on the other hand, evolution is inescapably of a systemic nature. (Jakobson 1987, 48)

Pure synchronic analysis cannot account for the flow and fluidity of experience and practice: »The history of a system is in turn a system [. . .] every synchronic system has its past and its future as inseparable structural elements of the system« (Jakobson 1987, 48). The dominant exists in a fluid construction of socially signifying relations which produce multiple discourses and differences within historical periods and over time. Perceptions of distinct periods or movements are themselves produced by the associations and patterning, repetitions, which Jakobson attributes to the dominant. But like Bakhtin’s heteroglossia, Jakobson’s dominants include not just a single structural dominant as a neutral anchoring sign position but multiple

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temporalities, alternate spaces, and performative heterotopias. In the second part of »The Dominant,« Jakobson shows that the friction and disconnect between the two kinds of dominant actually constitute a productive relationship. Dominant 1 (foregrounding an aspect of language or other textual element) produces textual cohesion by integrating all structural features under that aspect. Dominant 2 reintroduces temporal and socially differentiating aspects of usage and representation into a synchronic structural context. Both Dominant 1 and Dominant 2 are potentially distorting and creative, but at different levels and in different ways. Both mark out agentive subject positions and contexts for writers, makers, and readers, but with different textual consequences. Dominant 1, anchored to a text or activity, marks the text’s distinction from those norms and expectations by which audiences entertain what are possible or allowable forms, representations, and meanings. In this respect, the textual dominant will always be working against a moving series of audience expectations over time. Dominant 2, located in the contextual or intertextual archive (which is both temporal and spatial), constitutes the perceived norms and artistic expectations of a particular temporal period as distinct from those of other periods and at the same time is taken to reveal the very norms and expected usages an individual text is said to deviate from or reorder by deploying Dominant 1. In this framework, the dominant in a text might be revolutionary or assimilating; it might challenge mainstream power or collective meaning or redeploy dominant ideology for hetertopic purposes, in pedagogy, poetic grammar, or national mythology. At the end of his 1935 »The Dominant« Jakobson tries to reintegrate Dominant 1 and 2 into a Saussurean matrix of synchrony and diachrony : »In contrast to one-sided monism and one-sided pluralism, there exists a point of view which combines an awareness of the multiple functions of a poetic work with a comprehension of its integrity, that is to say, that function which unites and determines the poetic work« (1987, 43). One way of construing this claim is to say that Jakobson wants to reserve Dominant 1 for those texts which specifically enact a »poetic function,« that is, »a verbal message whose aesthetic function is its dominant« (1987, 43). Dominant 2, the structured textual archive at a particular moment, becomes a way to account for the historically situated and sustained hierarchies of linguistic functions, devices, and genres in social discourses. Just as Dominant 1 can shift in the linear sequence of the text or the temporal sequence of reading (as Jakobson points out in his reading of Pasternak’s The Safe Conduct), Dominant 2 is susceptible to temporal and therefore structural shifts in discursive, poetic, or material orders. Otherwise, we wouldn’t recognize the differences between Mannerist and Baroque or Modernist and Postmodernist periodizations or Foucault’s Classical or Modern discursive orders. Jakobson argues that genres, forms, and media are rhetorically hierar-

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chized in terms of audience expectations and appeal and structurally hierarchized in terms of cultural status and acceptability. This is precisely the sort of ordered reception study outlined by Bourdieu (1994), Jauss (1982), and in more disciplinary ways, Fish (1980, 1989). Jakobson’s dialectic between Dominant 1 and Dominant 2 renders so-called »transitional genres« and hybrid linguistic and literate forms as especially significant. Such texts, genres, and media may be considered nonaesthetic, that is, serve nonaesthetic functions, in one period but be aesthetically foregrounded or serve aesthetic functions in other periods (1987, 45). Hoop Dreams uses aesthetically foregrounding techniques to represent the lives of two AfricanAmerican high school basketball players in ways which glamorize and simultaneously make intimate the lives of poor and working-class minority men in the US. The film problematizes dominant, mainstream U.S. audiences’ assumptions about the young men’s lives and about the stated and hidden goals of private and public schools for educating them. Hoop Dreams can make us uneasy about our own narrative genres which mythologize minority youth, especially AfricanAmerican basketball players, as heroes in some respects, but not »for us« in others. The film challenges our expectations precisely by showing the young men’s lives, hopes, and words through artful cinematography and film editing. The film redeploys conventions from American professional sports promotional films and narratives of aspiring high school students to complicate the views and actions of minority communities and the Catholic high school coaches who offer them opportunities for social advancement if the young men will use their considerable athletic skills to benefit the school. The film also documents how the American ideal of individualism is actually an ideology of exceptionalism which works both for and against non-mainstream youth. While Hoop Dreams records the concrete lives of two African-American basketballers and their families as representatives of »life in the Chicago projects,« the film also depicts the two young men as exceptional athletes and complex human beings who may or may not rise above their circumstances to achieve their hoped for goals. In this way, the film withholds any affirmation that American society always rewards merit while it questions the basis upon which merit is apportioned. Jakobson’s theory of the »dominant« is intimately bound up with his theory of »markedness.« In markedness theory, linguistic structures are organized as sets of opposed elements on the same level (phonemes, morphemes, syntactic constitutents, words), beginning with the »zero sign.« The zero sign anchors all other oppositions. It is one element of a binary opposition and marks not choosing an element as a meaningful or significant sign position within a paradigm of limited or contextualized choices. Syntagmatic and associative sign relations are comprised of present and absent options. For example, in the set of English plurals, the opposition to a nominal plural marker (-s, -es) or a stem

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vowel change plural (mouse, mice) is the absence of any bound morpheme or mark, that is, a »zero sign,« which also indicates a plural form (deer, sheep) in context and triggers grammatically a corresponding plural verb (The deer is/are crossing the road.). When plural forms including the unmarked plural produce explicit grammatical marks elsewhere in the clause (verb marking), they indicate the nouns’ syntactic control and reveal a form of markedness which crosses linguistic levels (from word to syntactic constituent). To take another English example, we can distinguish meanings by attaching different articles (indefinite, definite) to a noun (a mark, the mark) or not attaching an article at all (mark [verb], Mark [proper name]). (How this makes sense of expressions such as »the Donald« [Trump] or »the rugby« is still up for grabs.) The Prague linguists showed us that absence is part of the structure and the zero sign is a relational signifier within a semiotic system. Bourdieu, Barthes, structural Marxists (Althusser, Macherey, Balibar), and some Post-marxists apply the Prague Circle’s understanding of neutral and marked language to social systems other than language. Silences, absences, and gaps within a social system do not necessarily constitute non-knowledge, what we don’t know. They are often »misrecognitions,« limitations on our imagining the possible, what I call »programmatic ignorance« (1993, 51; cf. Thomas 2004, 9 – 12). Misrecognition is not just Marxian »false consciousness« or Sartrean »bad faith.« Rather, misrecognitions are produced by the dominant structure’s inadequacy or impossibility as an explanatory machine. Possible but unacknowledged or unrealized aspects of the structure are positioned as deviant forms of understanding yet are always available within the assumptions, beliefs, and practices of the social order. Historicity and historicizing analysis reveal these absences to be repressed fullnesses. Both Althusser and Bourdieu’s notion of misrecognition makes explicit what is implicit in Jakobson’s two earlier formulations of the »dominant.« The dominant is a principal feature of structural hierarchy and of the deployment of power. The matrix of Dominant 1 and Dominant 2 constitutes a different way to think about ideology and alternative practices as resisting and creative. Rather than being restricted to the workings of domination and repression, ideology produces and is part of subjective agency, not only the self-defeating agency which serves the interests of dominant groups but also the deviant, alternative, and resisting beliefs and practices of social subgroups. Such groups receive and self-mark their status in relation to a dominant ideology which gives them an identity and excludes them. Bourdieu, Althusser (1969), Zˇizˇek, and Post-Marxists such as Laclau and Mouffe (1985) theorize ideology not just as a screen of false consciousness separating us from the Truth and Reality but as a constitutive social space, the productive site of alienation, subjectification, agency, disidentification, and world remaking. Literacy is one of the most contested social spaces within ideological struggles

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and institutional formations. Both Jakobson’s theory of markedness and Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and distinction are grounded in critical analyses of textuality and written discourses. We can outline three different models of literacy : conduit, power, and marker models (Marvin 1984, Reddy 1979, Frawley 1987). In the conduit model, writing and textuality are regarded as a relatively unproblematic mode for transferring information along a transparent linguistic conduit from sender to receiver. In the power model, writing, reading, and official knowledge are restricted to a minority of elites and privileged in a society, while textual information is disseminated to the majority orally or through other visual forms. People’s abilities to produce and handle written materials are correlated with their relative power in a society. The marker model takes a different way and identifies not a single Literacy but literacies as contingent semiotic practices and open discourses, available to different social subgroups and capable of serving different, even competing goals. The marker model reorients a strictly linguistic theory of »markedness« to account for competing textual practices as well as repressed or alternative literate practices. It is important to keep in mind that Jakobson developed his theory of markedness in terms of both oral and written forms, especially artistic texts. Jakobson and Trubetzkoy wrote: »Every single constitutent of any linguistic system is built on an opposition of two logical contradictories: the presence of an attribute (›markedness‹) in contraposition to its absence (›unmarkedness‹)« (quoted in Chandler 2002, 110). But as Jakobson’s matrix of Dominant 1 and Dominant 2 shows, and as deconstruction and the marker model of literacy continue to unpack, all language use is marked. Present forms and absent forms are structurally significant in relation to each other in some context. If usage gives us the domain and the elements of a language, then language as a structure is derived from marked forms. There is no fundamental or original language moment from which all others derive structurally and temporally except as the product of ideology. The syntactic and semantic oppositions of marked/unmarked terms govern our perceptions and understanding of naturalness and deviance – that is, difference – and inscribe ideologies of gender, competence, social prestige, and so forth into utterance. Our understanding of language and social subjectivity are bound up with our understandings of textuality and markedness. As Bourdieu writes, »Resituer la lecture et le texte lu dans une histoire de la production et de la transmission culturelles, c’est se donner une chance de contrúler le rapport du lecteur ” son objet et aussi le rapport ” l’objet qui a ¤t¤ investi dans cet objet« (1987, 140). In literacy theory, markers constitute strategies and practices which manifest how readers and writers communicate and interact through texts and in the process differentiate themselves as individuals and group members from other individuals and groups. The marker model imagines a contested field of liter-

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acies in which textuality, skills, and power are ordered and reordered by individual goals, differences, and textual play. The marker model also makes room for the importance of unintended consequences of textual practices, especially in the context of schooling and dominant literate cultures. Literacies are networks of social and linguistic markers and cannot be defined by a single criterion or by a unified practice based on a single standard, set of skills, or language type (Marvin 1984; Street 1985, 1 – 3, 101; Gee 1990; Gee 1992, 107 – 19; Gee 1996). Hyperliteracies, then, are the condition and the product of contested literacies. Some hyperliteracies are the product of what James Paul Gee characterizes as the tension between Primary and Secondary Discourses. Primary discourses are »those to which people are apprenticed early in life during their primary socialization as members of particular families within their sociocultural setting« (Gee 1996, 137). Secondary discourses are »those to which people are apprenticed as part of their socialization within various local, state, and national groups and institutions outside early and peer group socialization, for example, churches, schools, etc.« (Gee 1996, 133). Literacies emerge in either Primary or Secondary discourses, although the latter pathway is more common via schooling. Social and educational ›advantage‹ occurs when children’s Primary discourses closely approximate that of schooling’s Secondary discourse. Jakobson’s two definitions of the »dominant« are interrelated in several ways in texts and literacy events. Sometimes the intersection of Dominant 1 and 2 reinforces dominant social and political culture; other times, Dominant 2 crosses and subverts or reaccents dominant culture. A text emerges when »marks« and »iterability,« not the writer’s voice or self or intention or even her interests or responsibility, make possible future experiences with the trace of writing itself. Readers’ experiences and meanings do not necessarily map onto the writer’s nor are necessarily the writer’s responsibility. Jakobson’s dialectic between Dominant 1 and 2 dovetails with Derrida’s idea of the mark and iterability as the condition of textuality : »To write is to produce a mark that will constitute a kind of machine that is in turn productive, that my future disappearance in principle will not prevent from functioning and from yielding, and yielding itself to, reading and rewriting« (1982, 316). In »Signature Event Context,« Derrida recoups negativity and empty space as the necessary supplement for the production of legible and iterable marks. They are the condition of textuality which enables texts to emerge: »spacing is not the simple negativity of a lack, but the emergence of the mark« (317). Like Derrida, Jakobson argues that markedness floats atop the dynamic between presence and absence, between some marks and the seemingly empty space which marks demand as their supplement. Absence and empty space become signifiers precisely in terms of their negative signification. In hyperliteracy and a markedness theory like Jakobson’s, a text performs and

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articulates a second »dominant,« a textual other to the social dominant. Sometimes the textual dominant approaches the social dominant, as in perceptions of realist representations, denotative meaning, and consensus truth or probable premises. Other times, the textual dominant marks a difference between written utterances and what a writer or reader believes to be the social dominant. That is, as writing, a text comprises both present and absent marks to create a conceptual presence which depends not on the presence of a writer, author or addressees but on the text’s intertextual and referential repetitions or transpositions of a dominant code, archive, and possible (sayable) subject roles within a discursive field. Hyperliteracy emerges within a structural order of competing discourses and ideological formations where the possibilities for structural change and new ways of reading the world are wedged out of their determination by Dominant 2 and then inserted into a textual foreground by deliberate marking in Dominant 1. Such literacies represent and express particular subjectivities as agents. But they also critique the grounds or motives for textual work, repeat or redirect already instantiated utterances, and intervene to varying degrees in dominant social structures and institutional norms. As I shall argue, marker literacies, fortified by Dominant 1, retext (L. retex(t)ere, retextus: to unravel, to weave again) available genres, voices, connotations, linguistic forms, and reading contexts into sayable but hitherto unsaid or misrecognized or programmatically ignored forms in Dominant 2. Bourdieu’s theory of the habitus thickens a marker model of literacy and hyperliteracy by emphasizing how textual practices are embodied and performative. Bourdieu defines habitus as the »dialectic of social structures and structured structuring dispositions« (1999, 52), which critiques structuralism’s claim to objectivity from the point of view of experience, praxis, embodiment, and pragmatic performativity. Bourdieu’s habitus imagines bodies and agents as complex social spaces, beings within time and always operating within more than one structure of being. In Bourdieu’s theory, habitus intersects with the historicity of interests. As such, habitus is equivalent neither to Jakobson’s Dominant 1 or Dominant 2. Rather, habitus »is constituted in practice and is always oriented toward practical functions« (Bourdieu 1999, 52), that is, the matrix of Dominant 1 and Dominant 2. Individuals and groups actualize objective, deterritorialized structures through lived, embodied practical experiences, including textual experiences of writing, reading, hearing, and seeing. In his critique of scientific structuralism Bourdieu mostly goes after sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists who substitute theoretical models and idealisations for the world views and pragmatic belief systems of the people and texts they are interpreting. Objective structuralism, Bourdieu claims, is a kind of cultural asset stripping for the benefit of corporate academia and hegemonic society. The habitus, he argues, foregrounds how people’s behaviors and prac-

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tices are organized, regulated and subjectified within specific cultural formations and social institutions and promoted or prohibited for specific social purposes. Similar to Jakobson, Bourdieu states that the habitus includes both dominant discourses and those practices marked or recognized as resistant, nonconformist, deviant, avant garde, or experimental. This situation is complicated by the fact that resistant or nonconformist practices within the habitus are determined not just by their oppositional status but by dominant as well as alternative groups or individuals in multiple ways and at different times. The habitus does not always stand in oppositional relation to the dominant order. Individuals or subgroups can assimilate the habitus to dominant culture by cooperating in their own domination, internalizing dominant culture’s values, beliefs and »structuring structures,« and adjusting their own local beliefs and behaviors to conform. These manoeuvres are part of creative and interpretive practices. Ideology marks and performs subjectivities within the habitus by privileging certain values, practices and beliefs, thus dividing and sorting people and practices within a structure of values. What are the possibilities for alternative discourses and practices of change after Bourdieu’s critique of structuralism? Hyperliteracies are one kind of socialchange space for constructing alternative discourses within dominant discourse. Hyperliteracies suggest how Jakobson’s matrix of Dominant 1 and 2, based on his theory of markedness, is a procedure for uncovering repressed, undeveloped, or absent possibilities in textual practice. In hyperliteracies, Prague structuralism and poststructuralism look at one another through the ghost of objective structuralism. The Prague structuralists’ theory of markedness also contains a theory of language ideology and transgressive textual practices. Markedness and Jakobson’s matrix of the dominant also suggest that the »poetic« is not monolithic. It is neither inherently the avant garde wing of language and progressive artistic politics (as some Prague structuralists claimed) nor necessarily a conservative »aesthetic ideology« of taste and elite culture. Rather, a poetics based on marker literacy constitutes a structured intertextuality for creating new spaces within dominant forms. Hyperliteracy creates heterotopes by articulating texts from within the structured absences and repressions left by a confident but careless dominant discourse. Consider, for example, how Latin has functioned as a powerful marker within western and non-western language ideologies and literate practices. For centuries in the West, Latin has been the privileged language of intellectual culture and the object language of grammatical discourse. In the middle ages, Latin was a prestigious spoken and written language and thus critical for medieval language theory, ideology, and written practice. In his Convivio (13th c.), Dante worried about the genetic and institutional relations between Latin and the vernacular and how Latin’s social value was affected by the materiality of

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multilingual manuscript formats. While preparing a manuscript of his canzoni in the vernacular, Dante also composed a Latin commentary to his poems which was to be added in the margins. However, Dante’s multilingual compositions created a dilemma: if Latin is an ideal language, the language of grammatica itself, the prestigious discourses of learning and religion, what happens to the status of Latin if it is shifted from the center to the manuscript margins as a frame for his vernacular poems? How could Latin become a servant to the vernacular? True obedience should have three things, without which it cannot exist: it should be sweet and not bitter, entirely under command and not self-willed, and within measure and not beyond measure. These three things a Latin commentary could not possibly have possessed, and therefore it would have been impossible for it to be obedient. That this would have been impossible for Latin, as has been said, is made clear by the following reasoning: everything that proceeds by inversed order is disagreeable, and consequently is bitter and not sweet, as, for example, sleeping during the day and lying awake at night, or going backwards and not forwards. For the subject to command the sovereign is to proceed by inversed order (for the right order is for the sovereign to command the servant); so it is bitter and not sweet. And since it is impossible to obey a bitter command with sweetness, it is impossible for the sovereign’s obedience to be sweet when a subject commands. Therefore, if Latin is the sovereign of the vernacular, as has been shown above by many reasons, and the canzoni which play the role of commander are in the vernacular, it is impossible for its obedience to be sweet. (Dante 1990, 7)

Dante’s trouble with marginal Latin in a vernacular text goes to the heart of medieval theories of universal grammar and multilingual practices. Latin in the manuscript margins is a marked discourse; however, Latin as the sovereign language in multilingual discourse is also marked. Dante was an adroit analyst of language contact and vernacular differences, as any reader of his De vulgari eloquentia knows. But he and many others adhered to the European language ideology that Latin was the incarnation of Language itself, the exemplar to which all other languages and usages were compared genetically or structurally. Also, Dante and many clergy were concerned that Latin literacy was becoming too widespread among lesser ranks of laity. They expected Latin to remain an elite, learned discourse, although no longer reserved just for clergy. For Dante and the clergy, Latin literacy was an ideological tool in a dividing practice or »distinction« machine (Foucault 1982, 77 – 78; Bourdieu 1984). Latin language ideology and hyperliterate marking are also part of colonial, post-colonial, and neo-colonial discursive politics. In English, French, and Spanish discourses in the Caribbean, writers reproduce the Dominant 1 lan-

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guage ideology that »proper English« or »standard English« constitutes the norm and then explode that dominant by writing and performing texts which decenter and mark dominant language usage as deviant, artificial, or ill-fitted to communication. For example, Louise Bennett (1919 – 2006) uses comparative linguistic markedness, hyperliteracy, and a critique of Latin language ideology to disrupt the conventional distinction between standard and non-standard Caribbean Englishes: Listen, na! My Aunty Roachy seh dat it bwile her temper an really bex her fi true anytime she hear anybody a style we Jamaican dialec as »corruption of the English language.« For if dat be de case, den dem shoulda call English Language corruption of Norman French an Latin an all dem tarra language what dem seh dat English is derived from. Oonoo [= you pl.] hear de wud? »Derived.« English is a derivation but Jamaica Dialec is corruption! What a unfairity! (Bennett 1993, 1)

Bennett makes a similar point in her painfully funny poem »Bans O’Killing« about Standard and Nonstandard Englishes (first published in 1944): Dat dem start fe try tun language, From de fourteen century, Five hundred years gawn an dem got More dialect dan we! (Bennett 1966, 210, ll. 21 – 24)

Bennett’s speaker calls the question on the cultural confidence (game) of Standard English: Ef yuh dah – equal up wid English Language, den wha meck Yuh gwine go feel inferior wen It come to dialect? (Bennett 1966, 209, ll. 9 – 12)

In her prose and poetry, Bennett cites, then rewrites, retexts the doxa of dominant linguistic ideology. She uses the materiality of text to connote broader linguistic marking. Standard spelling suggests »proper« pronunciation, while phonetic or non-standard spellings (reduced consonant clusters, post-vocalic /r/ dropping, interdental th /R/ becoming voiced /d/ or unvoiced /t/, invariant BE forms, etc.) connote indigenous pronunciation and grammar. But so-called standard spelling is also fractured in that different readers with different internal

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phonological systems will ›pronounce‹ the printed words differently in their heads or aloud. Bennett’s imagined multidialect speaker purveys the wisdom of her »Aunty Roachy« and resituates the negative value judgment in Dominant 1 of Jamaican Creole English within a broader comparative historical vision that questions the naturalized indigeneity of contemporary Anglo-British speakers themselves. Status marking, like hyperliterate marking, is not description but performance, not natural but contingent, pragmatic, and rhetorical. In the 1920 – 30 s, when Jakobson first developed his theory of the dominant and its corollary, markedness, he did not explicitly question Marxism’s rejection of the »aesthetic« in favour of the »political« or the »real.« Formalism was never an alternative to content analysis or Truth. Jakobson’s theory of discursive functions and the »poetic« did not promote a naive formalist theory of art divorced from the world or worldly interventions. Rather, Jakobson’s twin theories of the dominant and markedness constitute a complex structural matrix for critical reading, for analyzing and theorizing aesthetic experiences while remaining suspicious of and engaged with practices, potentialities, and transgressions of language and other signs as available systems for design and performance. The critical matrix of a synchronic dominant shot through with historically specific textual dominants and other agentive markedness and textual subjectivities creates a discursive space and a temporal horizon, a heterotope, for continuing the unfinished work of structuralism. Structuralism in Jakobson’s theory of markedness can be a critical analysis of cultural texts which seeks out the misrecognized potentials of signifying practices for social change and other-worlds making. A pragmatic performativity, grounded in critical markedness and Bourdieu’s habitus, helps us imagine »multiliteracies« (Cope, Kalantzis 2000), multimedia designs, and multiple centers of agency, multiple habituses, which motivate new pedagogies of literacy and creative change. Let me concretize my general claim with two examples of how modernist poetry and critical pedagogy rethink structuralism and Jakobson’s theory of the dominant as hyperliterate heterotopes. Individual writing and reading develop within intertextual discursive spaces. Hyperliteracy resists closure by opening textual borders, disclosing semiosis without limit, and pressing against the ideological control of the power model of literacy. Hyperliteracy is contingent on material practices and situations. Through embodied reading, counter commentary, parody, and other »deformative« reading practices (Samuels, McGann 1999), hyperliteracy releases individual texts into the sign chain of unlimited signifying, resignifying, and retexting. Deformative hyperliteracy interrupts textual linearity with paradigmatic signifying. Hyperliterate reading and writing try to seize the discursive power which dominant Latin language ideology attempts to control. Thus, hyperliteracy marks struggles for meaning and power in both texts and reading

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formations. Language ideology and the power model of literacy work continually to close textuality’s borders, restrict the number of available passports, and channel the flow of migrations or assimilations. Hyperliteracy, on the other hand, foregrounds (marks) how the network of texts (hypotexts) and filiations (intertextuality) is neither a totalizable nor a stable structure. The domain of hyperliteracy is retexted in asynchronous or anachronistic developments, local histories of reading strategies, manuscript formats, discontinuous reading, multilingualism, and insubordinate aesthetic and documentary writing. Hyperliteracy is structured as an unruly set of mobile practices which reorder dominant and alternative or resistant discourses for both insider and outsider literates. Wallace Stevens’ »The Man on the Dump« (1968; first published in Parts of a World [1942]) thematizes different discourses and redraws the boundaries between less prestigious signs and the center of »High Modernist« poetic culture. In the poem, the representation of a Depression-era dump, a wasteland of discarded morsels, bits of trash (»the wrapper on the can of pears« l. 7), is also the repository of an alternative aesthetic discourse, »the janitor’s poems / Of every day« (ll. 6 – 7). The found poetry of can labels and scraps of newspaper headlines contrasts with the clich¤d images of »flowers of rhetoric« which pass for mainstream, dominant verse culture. Ruminating on trash and the rejects of human activity, the speaker imagines another kind of understanding: »One sits and beats an old tin can, lard pail. /One beats and beats for that which one believes. / That’s what one wants to get near« (ll. 35 – 37). The rhythm of these three lines is relentlessly iambic until the third, truncated line. Stevens’ last stanza turns from assertions to questions: »Is it peace, / Is it a philosopher’s honeymoon, one finds / On the dump?« (ll. 42 – 44). As the lyric speaker meditates on scraps of clich¤d usage, »the blatter of grackles« (l. 46), and sentimental, routinized repressions of linguistic experiment and more empowering creative and concept-bending expressions, he comes to a last question: »Where was it one first heard of the truth?« (l. 49). The last two syllables – actually, words – in the same line – »The the« – either continue the question, answer it, or represent a stutter which withholds the complement in the noun phrase (NP). The conclusion to this meditation on poetics subtly repeats one of English’s most used and seemingly least substantive or meaningful words. In these last two syllables, the poem repeats and then discards – trashes – other poetic registers. We are offered instead a retextualized morsel of language as a transgressive, newly-minted NP. The phrase structure of »The the« temporarily marks the second »the« as a new Noun through the immediate pressure of textual context. This is a classic example of the structural linguistic claim that phonetic or surface repetition is not necessarily structural repetition. Functionally, the poem marks the most banal of determiners as an infinitely full signifier, while it

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withholds any absolute referentiality for the word. The what is answered by itself: »The the.« Reference as false echo. Like Standard spellings in Louise Bennett’s Jamaican Creole English printed text, the Standard spelling of Steven’s printed »The the« conceals different dialect pronunciations of the Noun Phrase, including a possible working-class pronunciation [dBdK] with iambic stress and the association with drum cadences. When the is laid beside itself, the poem rewrites, retexts, the ordinariness of the word in dominant discourse as a marked usage. The verbal doubling is more than itself and rivals Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for the sense nonsense makes. If hyperliteracies and markedness construct new kinds of textual utterances and new subjectivities and possibilities for social change or justice, what about the relation between hyperliteracy and schooling? Schooling is one of the most pervasive aspects of dominant culture and has also been the site of hopes for social transformation and change. Multicultural and critical pedagogy use traditional and new forms of literate discourse to empower all students, especially minority or disadvantaged students, with knowledges and abilities which enable them to achieve greater autonomy and cultural capital and to shape their worlds as workers, citizens, and social creators. But, as James Paul Gee (2000) has recently pointed out, some cognitive assumptions and curriculum goals of critical pedagogy are also shared by »fast capitalism.« Whereas traditional, Fordist capitalism depends on top-down organization, centralized expertise flowing to the production line, and layers of supervision to ensure that workers are applying knowledge correctly to produce goods and services, fast capitalism fosters distributed networks and teams of knowledge workers who collaboratively pool their respective expertise and abilities to accomplish tasks or larger enterprises. Sometimes sounding a lot like Vygotsky on social mind as intelligence, fast capitalism promotes covert assimilation and group identification through apprenticeship, shadow-doing, shared expertise. But whereas Vygotsky was interested in understanding children’s cognition and improving literacy education, fast capitalism wants to harness individual abilities and resources for market production and economic advantage. Vygotsky saw literate individuals as capable of transforming the mainstream social order. Fast capitalism regards itself as the new social order. Fast capitalism’s dynamic network model also reimagines Bourdieu’s theory of habitus as a program for establishing »communities of practice« which maintain the mainstream dominant culture (Jakobson’s Dominant 2) through individual and group relationships organized to best serve mainstream-approved or dominant economic or cultural projects. For policy makers, some educational theorists, and managers, fast capitalism and postindustrial schooling have converged around dynamic, flexible portfolios of rearrangeable skills acquired through competence-based education, with the corollary that privatized schooling will best prepare students for the new

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workplace order. What happens, then, to critique, reflexive literacy, and alternative practice in such a cognitive, task-based environment with built-in assimilation? What happens to hyperliteracy as a project of hope? Alternative and critical pedagogies have inspired and shaped many peoples’ hopes and expectations for social change and literate power. Consider some critical relations between hyperliteracy and schooling revealed in a twentiethcentury alternative literacy program associated with Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1908 – 84). A controversial and inspirational figure, Ashton-Warner taught primary school literacy in rural, predominantly Maori schools in New Zealand from the late 1930 s through the 1950 s. In the 1950 s she also began writing novels based on her teaching and personal experiences and in 1963 published (with Bob Gottlieb, her U.S. publisher) her reflective teaching philosophy and strategies, Teacher. She left New Zealand in 1969, taught at an alternative school in Aspen, Colorado (1970 – 71) and lectured at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver (1972 – 74), before returning to New Zealand for good in 1974. Teacher is one of the most influential and inspirational teaching diaries ever written. In her book, Ashton-Warner reproduced or revised large chunks of her classroom interactions as well as reflections on the social contexts of teaching, her young pupils’ home and community experiences, and her own struggles with teaching as a profession and a calling. She also outlined her »Key Vocabulary« and »organic« method for teaching young children to read and write. Here, I am interested in Teacher as a text and a pedagogical critique which imagine what education can be and not as a documentary record of what actually occurred in Ashton-Warner’s classrooms or in other aspects of her life (Hood 1988, 130 – 86). Ashton-Warner’s lessons and materials for literacy pedagogy were part of what she called »transitional« education (1963, 66), an innovative program for educating mostly minority indigenous children in a society which often did not want them. Ashton-Warner was one of several primary teachers in New Zealand who resisted the state-imposed curriculum and early readers which she and others thought did more to disadvantage and turn off than encourage five-yearold Maori children to become competent readers and writers. Despite what others have attributed to Ashton-Warner, she herself was quite explicit about her goals. She wanted to use five-year-old Maori children’s experiences as a way to transition them into Pakeha (white European settlers and their descendants in New Zealand) literacy and culture. She imagined her classroom activities and readers as a way for Maori children to make the transition from the Maori pa community to the English literacy demanded in the wider world. AshtonWarner saw the differences between Maori and Pakeha as cultural incompatibilities rather than deficits, although she acknowledged that the differences were hierarchized as deficits and advantages in white-dominated New Zealand society. To overcome this inequality, teachers needed to acknowledge

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children’s lives, where they began school from, what skills, hopes, and obstacles they brought into the classroom. Then teachers could structure »organic« learning, that is, reading and writing which emerges from the children’s own experiences and curiosities. Ashton-Warner’s classroom was a kind of heterotope, where children’s own words and stories were used to build a bridge from the restricted yet energetic world of the pa community to the wider world of dominant culture and literacy. Unlike Basil Bernstein (1974, 170 – 89), Ashton-Warner regarded the experiences, language, and imaginations of young Maori children as powerful motivators for breaking into reading and writing and for understanding the power of written language. In this respect, Teacher contains two competing dominants: the goal of Pakeha literacy in English and the recognition that Maori children’s immediate lives and experiences are worthy of being part of school literacy. These two dominant values are located in two different but partially overlapping linguistic systems. Reading Teacher, one senses that while Ashton-Warner wanted to empower her children to bridge and cross class and racial divisions and master the skills and cultural possibilities of written discourses, she was not interested in turning Maori children into brown versions of polite, »respectable« middle-class white people. While her pedagogical methods and goals reaffirmed dominant society’s expectations that the children would learn English literacy, Ashton-Warner allowed a good deal of Maori culture and language, embodied in the children and in her own cross-cultural activities, to coexist in her classroom. Ashton-Warner’s pedagogy resists linguistic and textual homogenization. One of Ashton-Warner’s principal insights was that for many Maori children in her classroom, their interest in individual words first emerged from fear or sex, that is, from their primal experiences. While this might seem like romantic primitivism, for Ashton-Warner, it was a way to tap into the repressed energy of language. Beginning literacy pedagogy with children’s personal and home experiences necessarily entails introducing into the classroom behaviors, experiences, attitudes, and words which are not part of the formal curriculum and do not accord with dominant, mainstream norms for acculturation. Ashton-Warner insists that children tell her the English and Maori words they would like to know how to write and read. Thus, the children provide new reading and writing vocabulary words from their oral life stories, desires, and fears. For example: Later, standing watching Seven [one of her more aggressive pupils] grinding his chalk to dust on his blackboard as usual, I do see. »Whom do you want, Seven? Your old Mummy or your new Mummy?« »My old Mummy.« »What do your brothers do?« »They all hits me.«

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»Old Mummy« and »New Mummy« and »hit« and »brothers« are all one-look words added to his vocabulary, and now and again I see some shape breaking through the chalk-ravage. And I wish I could make a good story of it and say he is no longer violent [. . .]. (1963, 37 – 38)

If a child’s story begins to seem too dangerous for the rest of the class, and sometimes the stories were dangerous, she provides a separate sheet of paper for the child to write on privately. Eventually, the children read one another their stories and help each other pronounce and comprehend the written texts. Both the content and the form of the children’s stories subvert the middleclass assumptions and language of the 1950 s New Zealand Department of Education’s prescribed primary readers. Ashton-Warner’s Key Vocabulary pedagogy demanded different types of textbooks than the »Janet and John« readers, apparently based on American primary textbooks. The »Janet and John« readers imagined children’s lives in very restrained language: »I do not like the pond. I do not want to play here.« (Ashton-Warner 1963, 70 – 71). No impolite words or activities. No contractions. No creative spellings. No Maori words or ideas. No fear. No sex. No energy. So Ashton-Warner made more individualized readers for her pupils, handmade and handpainted illustrated books using the children’s own vocabulary words and stories, with their local hybrid language of English and Maori, their edgy unintended personal revelations, and hyperactive imaginary or domestic narratives. Contractions, naughty behaviors (bombs, knives, hiding, growling, drinking, hitting), and non-middle-class community experiences all become part of textuality as the children dictate their stories: I don’t delay the delivery of a thought by saying, »He is not naughty,« but say, »He’s not naughty.« »Where’s Ihaka?« »He’ll get a hiding.« »Kuri’s at home.« »Pussy’s frightened.« »I’ll come back.« In grown up novels we enjoy the true conversational medium, yet five-year-olds for some inscrutable reason are met with the twisted idea behind »Let us play.« As a matter of fact, Maoris seldom if ever use »let« in that particular setting. They say »We play, eh?« (1963, 71)

The sentence »We play, eh?« (We play, don’t we?) is a prime example of the hyperliterate discourse constructed in Ashton-Warner’s spoken and written classroom language. Her primary texts, produced collaboratively with her fiveyear-olds, bridged the social-cultural differences between Maori and Pakeha by using what she called the »pa vernacular« (Maori English) as a way of teaching wider English literacy. The Maori transition books inscribed the contractions and rhythms of everyday Maori English and Te Reo (Maori) into classroom materials. Her students’ speech formed the basis for her primary readers, es-

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pecially eh, the marked syntactic particle which signals questions, offers, requests, and discursive open-endedness in Maori English: »Eh, Mrs. H.? [Her married name was Henderson at the time.] We’re going to the river, eh?« (1963, 70 – 71). The eh particle and its syntactic functions are carried over from the Maori particle ne (nei) into English. Sociolinguists have shown that while both modern Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders use eh to mark questions, Maori English speakers do so more often and both Maori and Pakeha working class speakers (especially females) do so more often than middle class speakers (Meyerhoff 1994; W. Bauer 1997, 426; Holmes 1997, 2005). In different contexts, the eh particle can mark Maori or class identity. But when I and my family first moved to New Zealand, our then two-year-old son began to use the eh particle as a tag question within a few months after starting preschool. For him and for us, eh was an immediate marker of New Zealandness. Ashton-Warner uses the children’s Primary (Home) Discourse, both English and Maori, as a bridge into fluent reading and writing, but when she and her students inscribe Maori English and impolite words into their writing books as part of their stories, they give validity to the children’s speech, literate cognition, and most important, their lives and ideas by »bookifying« them. Eh, contractions, subject-verb misagreements, dangerous stories of domestic abuse and nighttime fears in the children’s writing are not dross or dirt to be hidden, erased, or corrected away on the road to »higher« literacy. Rather, AshtonWarner’s hyperliterate pedagogy made Secondary Discourse, the literacy of power and cultural access, available to the children by setting situating the power of written language within intimate, sometimes risky written version of their Primary Discourse and community experiences. In this respect, the students’ Key Vocabulary is generative, world making and world disclosing. The children’s hybrid textuality is formed by oral and written collaborations with their teacher in a classroom full of noise, movement, energy, drawn from the »force of the energy in our New Race« (her name for the Maori),« »like a volcano in continuous eruption« (1963, 103). Passionately praised as a heroic female educational saint or feverishly condemned as a petulant, difficult, self-aggrandizing outsider or imposter, the Ashton-Warner of Teacher put literacy pedagogy on equal footing with social commitment and pragmatic, student-centered classroom practices. The classroom was a heterotopic space for hyperliteracy. The final section of Ashton-Warner’s Teacher is a narrative of the now-retired teacher’s return to her former primary school. The old building has been replaced by a new modern building, and a young female teacher has taken over the classroom. The narrator’s sense of dislocation is strong: »I’m longing for my Little Ones to come in from assembly. A long long time since I have seen them[. . .]. Where are they going to put the easel? I wonder. What about the sand? What’ll happen when they bring the water trough in?« (1963, 220, 223). The pa has been

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erased from the classroom. There are no pa words in the cards posted around the room, no kiss, no ghost, no meeting house (223). The classroom has become respectable, ordered, charming, functional, part of dominant order. Still, in her melancholy return to the new classroom, the narrator incorporates her Maori children’s stories and their five-year-old English into her own. The classroom in her mind remains heterotopic and multidialectal: »and why does not Waiwini’s Little Brother wail to me that somebodies they broked his castle for notheen; somebodies?« (224) The ending of Teacher merges the child’s oral lament with Ashton-Warner’s written one. The hyperliterate narrative empowers the children’s stories yet one more time so that the narrator’s speech and the child’s overlap. While phonetic spelling marks the difference between different subjects and their language, the child’s voice and pain have become the adult narrator’s. The child speaks for the narrator, same fear, same lament, same world, same words. Or is it the other way around? I plug in the jug from habit when I return to the kitchen and go unnecessarily to the mirror to check my hair that I have washed this morning. Sparkling five-year-old tears on an autumnal face. That’s why somebodies they broked my castle for notheen; somebodies [. . .]. (1963, 224)

In the text, there is no quotation, no reported speech. There is no single textual dominant. The hyperliterate narrative combines two voices and two points of view in a paragrammatic discourse without attribution. Hyperliteracy might seem to be associated with new technologies or new media. But hyperliteracy is grounded in multilingualism and heterotopic practices. In Ashton-Warner’s classroom, handmade books, oral-written interaction, and collaborative reading and writing comprise a different kind of hyperliteracy, one which disrupts and reinvents normative classroom pedagogy by foregrounding children’s motives and languages. The children’s hyperliterate textuality, beginning with their own stories and words, marks a more politicized writing in a structural (heterotopic) space which crosses Dominant 2 (middleclass mainstream literacy) with Dominant 1 (immediate textual narratives of desire, loss, and hope). Ashton-Warner’s hyperliterate pedagogy and her collaborative reflection on teaching challenge our expectations of what a literacy narrative of progress should look like. Hyperliteracy as a structuralist pragmatics unhinges dominant discourses and language ideology from their prevailing institutional contexts and authorized commentaries. In this respect, hyperliteracy connects Jakobson’s theory of the dominant and markedness with Saussure’s less well known but equally powerful notion of the »associative sign.« Associative sign relations, of

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Mark Amsler

indefinite order and number, are structured not linearly but as a constellation of different structures (phonetic, syntactic, semantic). They create a space for making and reading open textuality. Beyond overt intentionality, hyperliteracy foregrounds difference, dissent, respect, creolization, and nonstandard discourses as critical practices and potential futures. The marker model deploys multiple Dominant 1s, whether in the manuscript format of Dante’s poetry, creole poetry, Stevens’ poetic syntax, or Maori children’s English stories. Implicitly or explicitly, these multiple structuring structures critique and pry loose Dominant 2 from its anchoring confidence in cultural hegemony. Hyperliteracy creates discursive contests and heterotopes as counter ideology formations within dominant discourse. These other spaces and texts unsettle and recontextualize the unitary stability of a power or dominant model literacy for new purposes. Hyperliteracy respects heretics.

References: Amsler, Mark (1993) »History of Linguistics, ›Standard Latin.‹ and Pedagogy,« in Law, Vivien (ed.), History of Linguistic Thought in the Early Middle Ages, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 49 – 66. Althusser, Louis (1969) For Marx, trans. Ben Brewster. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Ashton-Warner, Sylvia (1963) Teacher, New York: Simon and Schuster. Bauer, Winifred (1997) The Reed Reference Grammar of Maori, Auckland: Reed. Bennett, Louise (1993) Aunty Roachy Seh, ed. Mervyn Morris, Kingston: Sangster’s Book Stores. Bennett, Louise (1966) Jamaica Labrish, Kingston: Sangster’s Book Stores. Bernstein, Basil (1974) Class, Codes and Control: Theoretical Studies Towards a Sociology of Language, 2nd rev. ed., New York: Schocken Books. Bourdieu, Pierre (1987) Choses dites, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. Bourdieu, Pierre (1999) The Logic of Practice, trans. Richard Nice, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Chandler, Daniel (2002) Semiotics: The Basics, New York and London: Routledge. Cope, Bill, Mary Kalantzis (eds) (2000) Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, London and New York: Routledge. Dante Alighieri (1990) Convivio, trans. Richard H. Lansing, New York: Garland. Derrida, Jacques (1982) Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Fish, Stanley (1980) Is There a Text in This Class? Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Fish, Stanley (1989) Doing What Comes Naturally : Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

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Jakobson’s Dominant, Hyperliteracies, and Structures of History

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Foucault, Michel (1982) »The Subject and Power,« Critical Inquiry, 8:777 – 95. Frawley, William (1987) Text and Epistemology, Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Gee, James Paul (1990) Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses, London and New York: Falmer Press. Gee, James Paul (1992) The Social Mind: Language, Ideology, and Social Practice, New York and London: Bergin and Garvey. Gee, James Paul (1996) Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourse, second edition, London: Taylor and Francis. Gee, James Paul (2000) »New People in New Worlds,« in Cope, Bill and Mary Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, London and New York: Routledge, 43 – 68. Holmes, Janet (1997) »Maori and Pakeha English: Some New Zealand Social Dialect Data,« Language in Society, 26: 65 – 101. Holmes Janet (2005) »Using Maori English in New Zealand,« International Journal of Society and Language, 172: 91 – 115. Jakobson, Roman (1987) Language in Literature, ed. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Jakobson, Roman (1971) »Shifters, Verbal Categories, and the Russian Verb,« in Selected Writings, second edition, The Hague: Mouton, 2: 130 – 47. Jakobson, Roman (1971a) »Signe Z¤ro,« in Selected Writings, second edition, The Hague: Mouton, 2:211 – 219. Jauss, Hans Robert (1982) Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Timothy Bahti, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Laclau, Ernesto, Chantal Mouffe (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy : Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, trans. Winston Moore and Paul Cammack, London: Verso. Marvin, Carolyn (1984) »Constructed and Reconstructed Discourse: Transcription and Talk in the History of Literacy,« Communication Research, 11: 563 – 94. Meyerhoff, Miriam (1994) »Sounds pretty ethnic, eh: A Pragmatic Particle in New Zealand English,« Language in Society, 23: 367 – 88. Reddy, Michael (1979) »The Conduit Metaphor – A Case of Frame Conflict in Our Language about Language,« in Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 284 – 324. Samuels, Lisa, Jerome McGann (1999) »Deformance and Interpretation,« New Literary History, 30: 25 – 56. Stevens, Wallace (1968) The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, New York: Knopf. Street, Brian (1985) Literacy in Theory and Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, Margaret (2004) Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition: A History, London and New York: Routledge.

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III Theories of Structure and Their Transformations

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Johannes Fehr

The Question of Transmission in Saussure’s Reflections on Language Un mot n’existe v¤ritablement, et ” quelque point de vue qu’on se place, que par la sanction qu’il reÅoit de moment en moment de ceux qui l’emploient. Ferdinand de Saussure

Rather than the father of structuralism, as he was considered in France, the members of the Prague School of linguistics saw in Ferdinand de Saussure an elder stepbrother. These, at least, are terms that were chosen to characterise the somewhat reserved position of the Prague School regarding the Geneva linguist.1 In any case, the relationship between the Prague School and Saussure was not only one-sided, it was also biased by the fact that it was almost exclusively grounded on the Cours de linguistique g¤n¤rale, published in 1916, three years after Saussure’s premature death, and edited by his pupils. To the readers of Saussure’s posthumous writings – which began to be known and published only in the late 1950 s and which as recently as 2006 were also translated into English –, it is clear however that Saussure’s thinking on language was much closer to the Praguian’s than they had suspected it to be. This becomes particularly clear, if one considers the notion of »transmission« as I will do in the following. In order to do so, I will propose a close reading of some of Saussure’s manuscripts, which are texts of a particular kind: Rather than a sum of well established truths, they are a laboratory of a science in the making, meandering and full of hesitations, allowing us to follow the development of Saussure’s thinking.

1 See Holenstein (1974, 28 ff): »Fîr die Osteuroper ist das Verhltnis zu Saussure indessen komplexer. Man kçnnte seine Stellung eher mit der eines lteren Stiefbruders vergleichen. […] Je nach Kontext ist Saussure fîr die Prager Linguisten Vorbild, das sie propagieren, Kampfgefhrte in der Avantgarde und Kampfrivale, an dem man die eigenen Konzeptionen mißt.« For a more recent acount see Sldek (2007, 36 ff).

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The Notion of »Transmission« The notion of »transmission« also appears in the Course in General Linguistics, but it remains rather casually and marginally present since it is addressed as a purely physiological process which as such is considered as being not of interest for linguistics. In the well-known scheme of the »speech circuit« in the »Introduction« for instance, we learn that »the brain transmits to the organs of phonation an impulse,« or that, »from ear to brain, the physiological transmission of the sound pattern« takes place (Saussure 1983, 12). In contrast, the notion of »transmission« is extensively discussed in Saussure’s manuscripts. And what is astonishing there is not only the emphasis that the notion is given, but also how controversal, if not contradictory it is considered. To start, I will just pick out the first of a series of examples claiming that the notion of »transmission« is something properly crucial for any serious attempt to theorize language: note first the complete irrelevance of a viewpoint taking as its starting point the idea-sign relationship outside time, outside transmission, which alone tells us, experimentally, what the sign is worth. (Saussure 2006, 161)2

The importance of transmission should hardly be overseen thus, one might think. But as Saussure writes in the same manuscript, it is normally ignored or misconceived: What is unusual about the conventional sign is that the disciplines which might need to use it did not realize that this sign was [. . .] transmissible, and thus had a second life, about which one can assert that these disciplines (as well as the public in general) had no idea whatsoever […] (Saussure 2006, 154)3

2 Since unfortunately the text given in Writings in General Linguistics (Saussure 2006, based on Ãcrits de linguistique g¤n¤rale, Saussure 2002) is deficient and incomplete compared to the version in the critical edtion of the Cours de linguistique g¤n¤rale by Rudolf Engler (Saussure 1968 and 1972a), I am quoting the French texts included there from this older, but philologically much more careful publication. »[…] constatons tout de suite l’entiºre insignifiance d’un point de vue qui part de la relation d’une id¤e et d’un signe hors du temps, hors de la transmission, qui seule nous enseigne, exp¤rimentalement, ce que vaut le signe« (Saussure 1968, 273). 3 »Ce qu’il y a de particulier dans le signe conventionnel, c’est que les disciplines qui pouvaient avoir ” s’en occuper ne se sont dout¤es que ce signe est […] transmissible, et par la dot¤ d’une seconde vie, dont on peut bien dire que ces disciplines (de mÞme que le public en g¤n¤ral) n’ont aucune espºce de notion […]« (Saussure 1972a, 28).

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The Question of Transmission in Saussure’s Reflections on Language

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Here, as in some other comparable passages,4 Saussure’s position seems to be quite clearcut: although the concerned disciplines as well as the public in general may have no idea whatsoever, an understanding of transmission is said to be decisive for a serious theory of language. However, in a number of other passages in his manuscripts, Saussure separates – or excludes – transmission from the study of language. And astonishingly enough, he does it with comparable determination: Life of language may mean, firstly, the way language lives through time, i. e. the fact that it may be transmitted. – This fact is a truly vital element of language, because nothing in language escapes transmission; but it also happens to be completely foreign to language. (Saussure 2006, 33)5

The separation is even more radical in the following passage which, by the way, is quoted like the preceding one from a convolute of manuscripts discovered only recently, in 1996, in the Orangery of the Saussure family house in Geneva: In the last analysis – a point reached quickly – it is clearly impossible to understand what langue is, without first establishing its many modifications from one period to another. But once this is done, the most pressing task, in our view, is to reimpose a complete separation between the purely momentary ›langue‹ and the contingent fact that this ›langue‹ is naturally ment to be conveyed through time. In fact, a language is often made up of accidents of transmission, but that does not mean that we can study transmission instead of studying the language system; and it certainly does not undermine our certainty that the language system, on the one hand, and its transmission, on the other, will always be two things of a quite different order. (Saussure 2006, 34)6 4 See further in this chapter and Saussure (1968, 169). 5 »On peut entendre par vie du langage premiºrement le fait que le langage vit ” travers le temps, c’est-”-dire est susceptible de se transmettre. – Ce fait est si l’on veut un ¤l¤ment vital du langage, parce qu’il y a rien dans le langage qui ne soit transmis; mais il est plutút absolument ¤tranger au langage« (Saussure 2002, 53). 6 »Quand on en vient ” l’analyse derniºre qui est trºs vite atteinte, on voit qu’il n’est certainement pas possible de comprendre ce qu’est la langue sans conna‚tre d’abord les vicissitudes qu’elle traverse d’une ¤poque ” l’autre: mais aprºs cela, il n’y a rien de plus n¤cessaire, nous le croyons, que de r¤tablir une s¤paration absolue entre l’Þtre ›langue‹ toujours momentan¤ et le fait contingent que cet Þtre ›langue‹ est ordinairement destin¤ ” se transmettre ” travers le temps. En r¤alit¤ tout ce qui est dans la langue vient souvent des accidents de sa TRANSMISSION, mais cela ne signifie pas qu’on puisse substituer l’¤tude de cette transmission ” l’¤tude de la langue; ni surtout qu’il n’y ait pas ” chaque moment, comme nous l’affirmons, deux choses d’ordre entiºrement distinct, dans cette langue d’une part, et dans cette transmission de l’autre« (Saussure 2002, 55).

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If transmission is foreign to language and if it is of a different order than the language system, it is hard to see why it should be decisive to deal with it in linguistic theory. Obviously, the conclusions drawn in the last two quotations do strongly conflict with the affirmations of the preceding ones, and if Saussure’s papers are not to be considered only as a number of contradictory statements, the question has to be raised how these – at least – contrary lines of thinking should be put in relation to each other and how they should be dealt with. One possibility is to suppose that there is a development between the two positions that would have prevailed consecutively in Saussure’s thinking on language. Thus, one would assume that in a first step Saussure might have discovered the importance of transmission while in a second step he would have rejected it. However, such a reading has to face a number of problems. The first is that presumably – presumably, since only a part of Saussure’s manuscripts can be dated with sufficiant evidence – the passages refuting or rejecting transmission are earlier than those emphazising its importance, which would be strange enough for a first step. But, be this as it may, the fact is that in the Course in General Linguistics the position of leaving transmission aside is adopted. Now, what I will propose here is another reading: I will try to show that the two positions can be treated as resulting from a tension inherent in Saussure’s thinking on language.

Phonic Matter and the Distinction between Internal and External Elements of Language The second position which consists in strictly separating transmission from the system of language, evokes a similar attitude in Saussure’s thinking concerning the sounds of speech. According to a formulation of the Course in General Linguistics »a sequence of sounds is a linguistic sequence only if it is the bearer of an idea: in itself, it is merely an item for physiological investigation« (Saussure 1983, 101). A note taken in 1911 by Ãmile Constantin, one of the auditors of the last of Saussure’s three Courses in General Linguistics given at the university of Geneva, traces the same line of argument in the following terms: you can say that the material word is an abstraction from the linguistic point of view. As a concrete object, it is not part of linguistics. (Saussure 1993, 79a)7 7 »[…] on peut dire que le mot mat¤riel, c’est une abstraction au point de vue linguistique. Comme objet concret, il ne fait pas partie de la linguistique« (Saussure 1993, 79).

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The Question of Transmission in Saussure’s Reflections on Language

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The closeness between the exclusion of the »material word« from the field of linguistics and the exclusion of the question of transmission becomes palpable in the following passage, again quoted from Constantin’s notes: Phonation might appear to command an important place among the phenomena of language; appears as inessential as the various pieces of electrical apparatus which may be used to transmit signs of the Morse alphabet. Granted that these signs are visible at the two termini, it matters little by what apparatus they have been transmitted. (Saussure 1993, 72a)8

Both, »phonation« as well as the »various pieces« of an »electrical« telegraph »apparatus« appear inessential in so far as they are considered as mere means of transmission. But if so, wouldn’t it be consequent then to count the whole dimension of transmission of language, phonation included, among the so called external elements of language? Why, after all, are neither transmission, nor phonation mentioned in the particular chapter of the »Introduction« of the Course in General Linguistics dedicated to the distinction between internal and external elements of language? Why are they not counted among the things »our definition of language assumes that we disregard« (Saussure 1983, 21), like for example »all the respects in which linguistics links up with ethnology,« »political history,« »connections with institutions of every sort« and »the geographical extension of languages« (Saussure 1983, 21)?9 With regard to »phonation« there is a clear answer that can be given, since there is one particular caracteristic of the »material word« or »phonic matter« which cannot be disregarded in the study and theory of language as Saussure explained to his students again and again: With respect to the material instrument of the sign in linguistics, is it the characteristic of being the human voice, which is decisive? No. But here there is a crucial characteristic of phonic matter not sufficiently this is that it is presented to us as an acoustic chain, which immediately entails the temporal characteristic of having only one dimension. One could say that this is a linear character: the is presented to us as a line, and has enormous consequences 8 »La phonation en apparence pourrait r¤clamer une place de premier ordre au sein des ph¤nomºes de langage; appara‚t comme aussi inessentielle que les diff¤rents appareils ¤lectriques qui peuvent servir ” transmettre tels ou tels signes de l’alphabet morse. Ces signes ¤tant visibles aux deux extr¤mit¤s quel que soit l’appareil qui les ait transmis, peu importe« (Saussure 1993, 72). 9 For a detailed discussion of the problems related to the geographical extension of language which is where »the distinction between external linguistics and internal linguistics appears most paradoxical« (Saussure 1983, 22), see Fehr (2000, 70 ff).

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(Saussure 1997, 20a)10

Although the »linear character« is clearly a property of the »material word,« a property of »phonic matter,« it cannot be disregarded but has to be considered on the contrary as one of the two fundamental principles of the linguistic sign, as is well known from the passage of the Course in General Linguistics explaining the principle of linearity : The linguistic signal, being auditory in nature, has a temporal aspect, and hence certain temporal characteristics (a) it occupies a certain temporal space, and (b) this space is measured in just one dimension: it is a line. This principle is obvious, but it seems never to be stated doubtless because it is considered too elementary. However, it is a fundamental principle and its consequences are incalculable. Its importance equals that of the first law [arbitrariness of the linguistic sign]. The whole mechanism of linguistic structure depends upon it. (Saussure 1983, 69 – 70)11

Linearity, thus, is – or should be considered as – one of the two fundamental characteristics of the linguistic sign. But if so, what about transmission? If indeed linearity is considered as constitutive for the linguistic sign, as Saussure claimed, isn’t it exactly so, insofar as the transmission of the sign is concerned? Isn’t it the concrete, physical sign that is pronounced and perceived, handled by the speakers, that is subjected to linearity in contrast to a merely mental or ideal sign? Yet, isn’t it quite difficult – if not impossible – then, to take linearity as one of the two fundamental characteristics of the linguistic sign without according at the same time that transmission has to be considered as an indispensable part or as an intrinsic dimension of the linguistic system? 10 »Du cút¤ de l’instrument mat¤riel du signe en linguistique est-ce le caractºre d’Þtre la voix humaine, qui est d¤cisif ? Non. Mais il y a ici un caractºre capital de la matiºre phonique non mis suffisamment en c’est de se pr¤senter ” nous comme une cha‚ne acoustique, ce qui entra‚ne imm¤diatement le caractºre temporel qui est de n’avoir qu’une dimension. On pourrait dire que c’est un carctºre lin¤aire: la se pr¤sente ” nous comme une linge et a une immense port¤e « (Saussure 1997, 20). 11 »Le signifiant, ¤tant de nature auditive, se d¤roule dans le temps seul et a les caractºres qui’il emprunte au temps : a) il repr¤sente une ¤tendue, et b) cette ¤tendue est mesurable dans une seule dimension : c’est une ligne. Ce principe est ¤vident, mais il semble qu’on ait toujours n¤glig¤ de l’¤noncer, sans doute parce qu’on l’a trouv¤ trop simple ; cependant il est fondamental et les cons¤quences en sont incalculables ; son importance est ¤gale ” celle de la premiºre loi [l’arbitraire du signe]. Tout le m¤canisme de la langue en d¤pend« (Saussure 1972b, 103).

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The Question of Transmission in Saussure’s Reflections on Language

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Never Devoid of the Social Among the several passages in the papers he left, the following – which I have not quoted so far – is probably the most instructive one for the understanding of the importance of the notion of transmission in Saussure’s thinking on language. In particular, it allows us to understand in which respect Saussure’s thinking differed from the theory of signs that had predominated in the tradition of philosophy : 1. Language is merely a specific case of the theory of Signs. But this very fact alone totally prevents it from being something simple (or something whose nature the mind can grasp directly), even though in fact, within the general theory of signs the specific case of vocal signs might not be incalculably more complex than all the specific known cases, such as writings, numerals [ciphering, encryption], etc. 2. The crucial response of the study of language concerning the theory of signs, and the eternally new horizon it will open up [. . .], will be to impart to that theory a whole new aspect of the sign, the fact that the sign can only begin to be truly known when it is understood that it is something not only transmissible but intrinsically destined to be transmitted [. . .]. For anyone wishing to develop a theory of language, though, this complicates things a hundredfold [. . .] (Saussure 2006, 154)12

We seem to be at a pivotal point. In a first step, langugage is determined as being »a specific case of the theory of Signs«. As such, language cannot be »something simple«, »something whose nature the mind can grasp directly.« However, in this respect »vocal signs« are not even more complex than other known cases. But then, in a second step, there is a curious turnaround or volte face: since in the study of language there seems to appear something radically new, namely the fact that the »sign is [. . .] something not only transmissible but intrinsically destined to be transmitted«. In another manuscript, again from the Gardenhouse convolute discovered in 12 »1˚ cas particulier de la Th¤orie des Signes. seul fait, il se trouve d¤j” dans l’impossibilit¤ absolue d’Þtre une chose simple (ni une chose directement saisissable ” notre esprit dans sa faÅon d’Þtre), alors mÞme que dans la th¤orie g¤n¤rale des signes, le cas particulier des signes vocaux pas en outre le plus complexe de tous les cas particuliers connus, tels que l’¤criture, la chiffraison, etc. 2˚ Ce sera la r¤action de l’¤tude du langage sur la th¤orie des signes, l’horizon nouveau qu’elle aura ouvert […], que de lui avoir appris tout un cút¤ nouveau du signe, ” savoir que celui-ci ne commence ” Þtre r¤ellement connu que quand on a vu qu’il est une chose non seulement transmissible, mais de sa nature destin¤ ” Þtre transmis […]. Seulement pour celui qui veut faire la th¤orie du langage, c’est la complication centupl¤e […]« (Saussure 1968, 169).

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1996, Saussure speaks of language as »a collection of signs [. . .] capable of transmission through time, from individual to individual, from generation to generation« (Saussure 2006, 28)13 – and here he explains in which respect this process is different from what the »theory of signs« traditionally deals with: Imagine that the question of the origin of language is under debate. The question can only be approached from these two angles: the conditions in which a thought comes to correspond to a sign, or else the condition in which a sign comes to be transmitted over six months, or twelve months. This latter case precludes thought, since thought may differ from one moment to the next. The central phenomenon of language is the association of a thought with a sign; and this central fact is nullified in the course of the sign’s transmission. (Saussure 2006, 28)14

The »theory of signs« – in the tradition of philosophy – is focused on the relationship between the sign and what it refers to, »the association of a thought with a sign«, considered the »central – primordial – phenomenon of language«, as Saussure writes. Yet, beside, beneath or behind the relation of thought and sign there is something different, much less obvious, namely the question of how it is possible that a sign, and be it only for a period of six to twelve months, may be transmitted. Instead of the relation of thought and sign, other problems have to be examined: How is it possible that signs are available, that they are circulating? What does it take, what is required to make words available as signs? How do words have to be constituted in order to be able to be transmitted? If indeed linguistic signs are »intrinsically destined to be transmitted«, this means that there is not something like a sign as such that could be described or defined outside transmission. On the contrary, it is only insofar as something is transmitted and transmissible that it exists as a sign. Interestingly enough, it is in a passage dealing with phonology that Saussure developed ideas following the same line of argument: The phonatory unit must be defined; and when it has been defined, the absence of 13 »Veut-on au contraire consid¤rer la langue comme une somme de signes (il ne faut plus parler ici de systºme) jouissant de la propri¤t¤ de se transmettre ” travers le temps, d’individu en individu, de g¤n¤ration en g¤n¤ration, il faut dºs le d¤but constater que cet objet offre ” peine quelque chose de commun avec le pr¤c¤dent« (Saussure 2002, 46 ff). 14 »Supposons que nous ayons ” parler de l’origine du langage. Il y aura imm¤diatement ces deux maniºres de concevoir la question: ou bien les conditions o· une pens¤e arrive ” correspondre ” un signe – ou bien les conditions o· un signe arrive ” se transmettre pendant six mois, ou douze mois, et aussitút la pens¤e est supprim¤e, parce que cette pens¤e peut diff¤rer d’un instant ” l’autre. Or le ph¤nomºne primordial du langage est l’association d’une pens¤e ” un signe; et c’est justement ce fait primordial qui est supprim¤ dans la transmission du signe« (Saussure 2002, 47).

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The Question of Transmission in Saussure’s Reflections on Language

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any difference betweeen the unit within or outside the chain will be apparent. The idea that phonemes drift about in the sky and sometimes drop down into the speech chain will be abandoned. The biggest mistake of the phonologists that I attack is not to have reckoned that phonemes ›entering the chain‹ behave in a special way, even though this notion itself is extraordinary, but rather to have accepted the idea that there might exist some realization of the phoneme other that the one it has within the chain, and to have disseminated the idea that B or Z or L represent units, or even ›directly given units,‹ without attempting to show what such an affirmation means. (Saussure 2006, 93)15

If »phonemes« exist only »in the chains« or if signs exist only insofar as they are transmitted, this has consequences for the way the system of phonemes or the system of signs has to be conceived. A system constituted by elements existing only in a process of transmission and permanent circulation, cannot be something closed nor something immutable, established once and for all. And Saussure did not ignore it – »this complicates things a hundredfold« »for anyone wishing to develop a theory of language,« as he wrote in the passage quoted above. As mentioned at the outset, in the Course in General Linguistics the question of transmission and its complications for the theory of language are completely elided. It is not surprising therefore if Roman Jakobson, as other exponents of the Prague School, critized the Saussurean conception of the system of language for being too rigid, and particularly that the strict separation between synchrony and diachrony propagated in the seminal book of 1916 obstructed the view on the dynamism inherent to language (cf. Holenstein 1974, 34 – 55). Yet, passages found in his unpublished papers, such as the following with which I want to conclude, leave no doubts that in his reflections Saussure was about to develop a conception of a sign system much closer not only to positions of the Prague School, but perhaps even more to a poststructuralist thinking on language:

A sign system, if it is to be so called, must be part of a community—indeed, only as 15 »Il faut d¤finir l’unit¤ phonatoire, et quand on aura d¤fini cette unit¤ on verra l’absence de toute diff¤rence entre l’unit¤ dans la cha‚ne ou hors de la cha‚ne. On cessera de se figurer que les phonºmes planent d’une part dans le ciel et tombent quelquefois, d’autre part, dans la cha‚ne parl¤e. Le plus grand tort des phonologistes que j’attaque n’est pas de s’Þtre imagin¤ que les phonºmes ›en entrant dans la cha‚ne’ se trouvent soumis ” un r¤gime sp¤cial, quoique cette id¤e soit d¤j” extraordinaire, mais bien d’avoir accept¤ l’id¤e qu’il existerait un autre avatar quelconque des phonºmes que celui qu’ils peuvent avoir dans la cha‚ne, et d’avoir propag¤ l’id¤e que B ou Z ou L repr¤sentent des unit¤s, voire des ›unit¤ imm¤diatement donn¤es’ sans aucune tentative de montrer ” quoi correspond une telle affirmation« (Saussure 1968, 132).

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such does it constitute a sign system at all. As such its general conditions of existence are so different from anything it might otherwise represent, that the rest appears unimportant. It should be added here that if this community environment changes everything for the sign system, this environment is also the original and true locus of development, towards which, right from its very inception, a sign system moves. A sign system is destined for a community just as a ship is for the sea. Its only role is that of allowing comprehension between people in groups large or small, but not for the use of a sole individual. This is why, contrary to appearance, semiological phenomena, of whatever kind, are never devoid of the social, collective element. The community and its laws are among their internal, rather than external elements, as far as we are concerned. (Saussure 2006, 202)16

References: Fehr, Johannes (2000) Saussure entre linguistique et s¤miologie, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Holenstein, Elmar (1974) Roman Jakobsons phnomenologischer Strukturalismus, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Saussure, Ferdinand (1968) Cours de linguistique g¤n¤rale, ed. Rudolf Engler, vol. 1, Wiesbaden: Harassowitz. Saussure, Ferdinand (1972a) Cours de linguistique g¤n¤rale, ed. Rudolf Engler, vol. 2, Wiesbaden: Harassowitz. Saussure, Ferdinand (1972b) Cours de linguistique g¤n¤rale, ed. Tullio De Mauro, Paris: Payot. Saussure, Ferdinand (1993) Troisiºme Cours de linguistique g¤n¤rale (1910 – 1911) d’aprºs les cahiers d’Emile Constantin / Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1910 – 1911), ed. Eisuke Komatsu and Roy Harris, Oxford: Pergamon. Saussure, Ferdinand (1997) Deuxiºme Cours de linguistique g¤n¤rale (1908 – 1909) d’aprºs les cahiers d’Albert Riedlinger et Charles Patois / Saussure’s Second Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (1908 – 1909), ed. Eisuke Komatsu and George Wolf, Oxford: Pergamon. 16 »C’est seulement le systºme de signes devenu chose de la collectivit¤ qui m¤rite le nom de, qui est un systºme de signes: parce que l’ensemble de ses conditions de vie est tellement distinct depuis ce moment de tout ce qu’il peut constituer hors de cela que le reste appara‚t comme inimportant. Et on peut imm¤diatement ajouter: que si ce milieu de la collectivit¤ change toute chose pour le systºme des signes, ce milieu est aussi dºs l’origine le v¤ritable endroit de d¤veloppement o· tend dºs sa naissance un systºme de signes: un systºme de signes [n’est] proprement fait que pour la collectivit¤ comme le vaisseau pour la mer. Il n’est que pour s’entendre entre plusieurs ou beaucoup et non pour s’entendre ” soi seul. C’est pourquoi ” aucun moment, contrairement ” l’apparence, le ph¤nomºne s¤miologique quel qu’il soit ne laisse hors de lui-mÞme l’¤l¤ment de la collectivit¤ sociale: la collectivit¤ sociale et ses lois est un de ses ¤l¤ments internes et non externes, tel est notre point de vue« (Saussure 2002, 289 – 90).

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Saussure, Ferdinand (2002) Ãcrits de linguistique g¤n¤rale, ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler with the assistance of Antoinette Weil, Paris: Gallimard. Saussure, Ferdinand (2006) Writings in General Linguistics, ed. Simon Bouquet and Rudolf Engler with the assistance of Antoinette Weil, trans. Carol Sanders and Matthew Pires with the assistance of Peter Figueroa, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Sldek, Ondrˇej (2007) »Ferdinand de Saussure Interpreted by Jan Mukarˇovsky´,« in Fehr, Johanes, Petr Kouba (eds) Dynamic Structure. Language as an Open System, Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 36 – 57.

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Giuseppe Martella

From Index to Link: A Phenomenology of Language So that gesture, not music, not odours, would be the universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm. James Joyce, Ulysses (»Circe«)

Language of the Body Gesture and word have always been intimately connected in the history of man. As Gregory of Nyssa once observed, »it is the hand that renders free the word,« and if we ask for what purpose it frees the word for, the answer might be: in order to arrive at some awareness of shared gestures and actions or, in other words, to common consciousness. However this may be it is certain that the use of any single utensil frees the word in a specific way of its own. We could therefore maintain that the joint enterprise of signs and deeds on the one hand evolves together with our technological instruments, while on the other hand it transcends the sphere of man/woman, as both ethology and robotics have well shown. We ought therefore by now to be prepared to see such an enterprise as pre-human and post-human. In order to articulate this statement it may be useful to adopt a sort of paleontological perspective, capable as such of encompassing Primary era fish and Quaternary era man, and in which we can as it were witness a series of successive liberations, »that of the whole body from the liquid element, that of the head from the ground, that of the hand from locomotion, and lastly that of the brain from the facial mask« (Leroi-Gourhan 1964, 40 – 41). And surely among the organs of a living body there is always some sort of solidarity, determining functions that are distinct and yet reciprocal. Therefore, it seems to me that a »thick description« of human language should first of all consider its functions in relation to the organs of the individual body and only as secondary to those of the social body, in which it cooperates. Instead of this, both historical and structural linguistics have generally disregarded the basic relationship of language to the body and the use of utensils, considering language as an autonomous entity severed, as it were, from the sphere of animality and from animal evolution. Both approaches have indeed studied language in pretty abstract terms, occasionally referring to its connection with the

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social milieu, but in fact ignoring both its biological and ethological aspects (Robins 1967). In my opinion, now the time has come to restore a body to language, and to incarnate the word in the whole history of the living (i. e. not only of humankind), in order to better understand its genesis and functions. In the past fifty years, molecular biology, ecology, cybernetics and information technology have changed respectively the notions of life, environment, intelligence and language, relating them all, more or less explicitly, to such ideas as chance, considered as a principle of organisation, autopoiesis, complexity and statistical inference. The disciplines of language, text, society and culture – in other words: the human sciences as a whole – must simply face up to these changes and shed their disciplinary isolation and anthropocentric approach. Erwin Schroedinger (a pioneer at once of atomic physics, molecular biology and the theory of information, and the first scientist to intuit the notion of a genetic code) once suggested that all living beings feed not only on energy but also on information, that is, on negative entropy ; if this is true, then language is really a constitutive part of man’s being, not only in the metaphysical sense of man’s being-thrown-into-the-world and of his existential angst in the face of casualties and death, but also in a sheer scientific sense, according to which all living things feed on an energy-information diet allowing them to regulate their life and thus to survive by means of a more or less complex interpretation of all stimuli coming from the world without. We might thus conclude that the existence of codes permits both the constitution of cultural texts and that of organic tissues, and put aside all sharp distinction between hermeneutics and biology (Maturana 1980). Life and understanding are in fact to be regarded as reciprocal functions that cover the entire time span from pre-human to posthuman. They transcend the homo sapiens as a species, locating him in a tensional space within the ecosystem, as it were in a precarious balance between the impact of micro-organisms and that of microchips. In this perspective, it is my opinion that, both from a historical and a structural perspective, human language is not to be considered as a closed system of neutral and conventional differences, but rather as an open system of differences that are so to say biased or asymmetrical, i. e. stemming from significant and motivated gestures, and bearing traces of the course of their histories, beginning with a living body trying to find its way and to mark out its territory. In a phenomenological perspective such as the one I am now trying to follow, the world of perception and that of expression should be considered on a par and as complementary. Just as experience of the world is gained in fact through the unfolding of inherent horizons of meaning, so its expression is achieved as a gradual de-marking of the self-here-now (the subject of the utterance) and as a gradual and oriented demarcation of the world, starting from a single body and from its occasional, more or less violent, inaugural gestures. It is

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therefore useful to take the phenomenology of perception and that of motility as starting points for the understanding of the functioning of language both in its relation to the body and as the expression of the world-body. By so doing I believe we can avoid the snares of both a mechanical structuralism and a mystique of language, seen as the unearthly home of being and of its unspeakable event. On the other hand, today’s digitalisation of cultural memory is quickly modifying relations between the individual and the species, in a way never before dreamt of in the course of evolution, thus forcing us to explore such topics as artificial intelligence, the animal-machine relation and the statute of cyborgs. What is most dramatically changing in the realm of human interaction is, in my view the very nature of deixis, and this also means the nature of the space-time coordinates of the living body. In other words, we are witnessing a rapid reconfiguration of all modes of territory-demarcation that have long been preserved in the memory of our species, materialised in its symbols and myths, schemata and figures of speech, and eventually in the texts of our tradition. Thus the so-called natural languages, now also being used by cyborgs, ought to be seen as non-autonomous systems, open to stimuli from the external environment and to alphanumerical complications, and moving towards the condition of artificial languages. Such considerations should help us unmask the long-standing illusion of the ›naturalness‹ of verbal language, showing that it is merely the result of a process of naturalisation of an interiorized technique, that of speaking, which has ever since become an unquestioned habit (Armand 2006, 1 – 4). Following this train of thought, I am driven to conclude that the horizon of our age is marked by the eclipse of natural languages, so far considered as the tokens of the originality of our cultures and the guarantors of the purity of our identities. All cultural identity is in fact being exteriorised and resolved in the digital multiplication of the programmes accessible to our organic index (our finger), which in an immemorial time founded subjectivity in language and set it up as a system of demarcation of the surrounding environment.

Functionalism and Phenomenology We know that what is generally understood as a »mark« is a »sign or symbol impressed on an object to indicate whose property it is, the place of origin or manufacture, the quality, or other characteristics«. Hence in linguistics the term »mark« has come to indicate »a significant element that characterises in an oppositional way the phonological, morphological or lexical entity that possesses it as compared to the one that does not« (De Mauro–Paravia 2002 – 2009). We can thus observe that the concept of the linguistic mark, or feature, contains

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the orientation of a given term towards a more general one to which it has given birth in time and to which it logically belongs (Jakobson 1980, 92).1 This generation and participation of words out of words both refer to the ways in which subjectivity operates in language. When asked about the concept of linguistic features, developed simultaneously by him and Trubetzkoy, Roman Jakobson replied that »it is a kind of intrinsic content of correlations […] In linguistic consciousness the binary opposition takes the shape of a contrast between the presence of a mark of any kind and its absence (or between the maximum of any mark and its minimum).« He then impeccably concluded that structural correlation, not only in linguistics but also in ethnology and the history of culture, »is always a relation between the categories of the marked and the unmarked [… and for this reason] it is important to establish for each age, group, nation etc. which series is the one constituting the category of the marked«(Jakobson 1980, 92). This statement is tantamount to acknowledging (as later done by Yuri Lotman) that every language of culture, being a system of differences, is made up of a network of deep asymmetries (between marked and unmarked terms), each of which points to both a ceremonial beginning and/or an end, and thus gives way to the possibility of a cultural typology (Jakobson 1980, 94).2 In conclusion, a rethinking of the whole matter reveals that the functionalist approach that characterised the linguistic and literary studies of the circles of Moscow, Petersburg and Prague in the nineteen-twenties and -thirties was in many ways already beginning to corrode from within Saussure’s paradigm of language considered as a simple system of differences (Saussure 1977). In particular, the observations made by Jakobson on the status of the so-called shifters or deictics and on the presence of marked terms at various levels of linguistic opposition (which amount to recognising the foundation of language in a historical subject) represented a radical questioning of Saussure’s idea of the purely differential and conventional nature of language. Such a train of thought allows us to notice, for example, that the procedure of commutation, which has been adopted in phonology to individuate the relevant traits and the differential values of a phoneme in a given language, is after all only empirically based and issues results that are often questionable. Or also that the criterion of double articulation as a distinctive characteristic of human (as opposed to animal) 1 Jakobson’s example is that of subjective time in verse, as opposed to the objective, nonmarked time of ordinary speech. For Jakobson however, all grammatical declination/conjugation is constituted through the opposition of marked/non-marked terms. 2 According to Jakobson, »the fact of conceiving every binary opposition at whatever level of the linguistic structure as the relation between the mark and the absence of it is the logical outcome of the idea that a hierarchical order is at the basis of every language system, in all its ramifications and manifestations« (1980, 94).

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language, turns out at close inspection to be nothing more than an anthropocentric prejudice, for we can never rule out the possibility that also in animal languages a distinction can exist between gestures and sounds that have a meaning and others that have no meaning; or better, and according to a scale, between single signs-sounds with a vague meaning and clusters of them that take on a more precise meaning for a given group and in a particular ecological environment. On the other hand, in digital codifications it is certainly possible to distinguish, at various levels, starting from bits and bytes, purely differential oppositions from fully meaningful configurations. What I want to suggest is thus, firstly that double articulation (that is, the shift from merely distinctive to fully signifying contrasts) transcends the phonetic field and is applicable at the very least also to gestures; secondly, that it not only regards human but also animal language; and lastly, that it can very well be applied to machine languages, down to the distinction between algorithm and instruction. In conclusion, in a paleontological and technological, rather than merely anthropological, perspective, language appears as a function that is transversal to biology, anthropology and cybernetics. Its genesis, structure and function should therefore be considered as jointly and severally related to human evolution and to the evolution of the environment as a whole, from its physical-chemical basis to its modes of organisation, both biological and ethological, technical and scientific, sociological and cultural. An integral functionalism ought therefore to take into account this double opening of the so-called natural languages, both downwards (ethology and molecular biology) and upwards (the languages of culture and of artificial intelligence). The scientific paradigm of complexity as well as all the recently developed systems-theories can possibly embrace both linguistic functionalism and the typology of culture. As Edgar Morin, among a few others, has been pleading for a while, it should be desirable to go beyond the sharp distinction between man, animal and machine, as well as beyond that between nature, culture and technology (Morin 1973). I do believe the time has eventually come to fully face the serious challenges issuing at once from our inter-disciplinary and ecological predicaments. But only a truly phenomenological approach to language can really help us understand that the hierarchical order inherent in the concept of feature is the result of a genetic course that starts from the index of the hand, pointing to the Ihere-now of the utterance as the marked category par excellence and the true origin of language as a cultural institution. In fact, the most substantial and specific information conveyed by the marked as compared to the unmarked term in all language, implicitly regards its distance from the bodily index which deeply roots every speech act in the living ground of culture. Every linguistic feature in a text or discourse can be considered in fact as the lingering trace of an

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act of indication, being the inaugural gesture of orientation of the body in a given environment and in an interactive situation. Every language in this sense bears the traces of a people’s history, having elaborated and configured them as a sort of map of the habitat of the gesturing body. We therefore need consider the latent topology of language, which is able to disclose in turn a possible typology of the manifestations of the world in language. To sum up: we can now refer the concept of linguistic feature back to that of deixis as the inaugural gesture of orientation of the subject in its world-environment; the very gist of the concept of mark consists in fact precisely in its being a trace of indication lingering in the language system – a trace and distant echo of the indexical explosion that gave origin to the linguistic universe. For this reason it is only misleading to conceive language as an abstract system of differences that the subject can make use of in an occasional speech act, because language is the result of recursive acts of orientation that construct an environment around the gesturing body. These acts do not happen in the void but in interactive situations, in which the living subject defines itself in relation to another one, whom it indicates and with whom it starts a sort of mimetic game, be it cooperative or antagonistic, which gradually develops into ritual, myth and eventually culture. We can therefore conceive language as a whole system of asymmetrical differences (that is, differences between marked and unmarked terms) issuing from a motivated act and a deictic basis, originating from the gesturing body within an interactive situation, and answering the subject’s need of orientation for the sake of its survival in a given habitat. All these occasional gestures and sounds are later fixed (through repetition and habit) in formulaic performances, as well as, through garlands of rites and myths, in social norms and institutions. All the major themes in the thought of Jakobson and of the Russian Formalists3 show them as being closer to phenomenology than to Saussurian structuralism, although it was rather Saussure they were associated with in the nineteen-fifties and sixties. But it is in the concept of »dominant« that the phenomenological orientation of Jakobson’s linguistics can be fully grasped. This is because the idea that the evolution of language and that of literature come about through the alternation of different symbolic forms in a dominant position, rightly places them in the sphere of genetic evolution and reassigns them to the bodily functions and to the phenomenology of perception which derives from them. 3 The concept of mark, the order of the appearance of phonemes in children, the six great functions of language, each of which is prevalent in a given text, as well as the general conviction that »a hierarchical order lies at the foundations of every language system, in all its ramifications and manifestations« (Jakobson 1980, 94).

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In an essay entitled »The Dominant,« Jakobson in fact makes a few telling comments on this topic, referring to some of the major themes and phases of research of the Russian and Czech Formalists, and particularly to the link between sound and sense as an »inseparable whole« in the poetic texts. In this essay he offers a good definition of the dominant »as the focusing component of a work of art […that] rules, determines, and transforms the remaining components […,that] guarantees the integrity of the structure […and that] specifies the work« (Matejka and Pomorska 1971, 82). As one can clearly see from this passage, Jakobson points to cohesion, specification and focusing as the constituent functions of the dominant in a certain textual corpus4. In short, as the dominant informs and focuses all cultural work in its own context, any emergent dominant trait de-forms the work and determines its reception and adaptation within a given social environment. I have mentioned this passage of Jakobson’s in order to suggest that there is a unique thread connecting the phenomenology of perception, linguistic functionalism and the typology of culture. This thread, which can perhaps be spun out of the concept of dominant, leads us to compare the movements of the body with those of language, since the phenomenology of the word is rooted in its physiology, and the sense of all discourse in the senses of the living organism.

Index and Link As Maurice Merleau Ponty once remarked, the sense of a thing perceived […] can only be articulated as a certain gap with regard to the level of space, of time, of mobility and in general of signification in which we find ourselves, and can only be given as a systematic deformation, of our world of experience, without our being necessarily able to name its principle. Every perception is not the perception of some thing unless it is also the relative inperception of a horizon or background that is involved, although not thematized, in our experience. (Merleau-Ponty 1995, 25; my translation)

All this is as true of perception, as it is of our experience in general and of its linguistic expression. This should induce us first of all to conceive of linguistic difference in terms of the relation between figure and background, which is 4 Jakobson gives the example of Czech poetry between the fourteenth and twentieth centuries, where, depending on the occasion, metre, rhyme or intonation assumed a different weight in determining the poetic value of the artefact or even its status as poetry (Matejka and Pomorska 1971, 82).

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essentially an asymmetrical relation. Every symbolic system stems, in fact, from this basic perceptual game, which is implicitly rooted in the gestures of turning our eyes and of pointing our fingers. And this amounts to reaffirming the principle of the deictic basis of all language and to drawing the systemic conclusions thereof. The relation between figure to background in the act of perception constitutes in fact the first breaking of the universal principle of symmetry and equivalence holding in our psychic unconscious, (Lotman 1992, 70), and this breaking of symmetry is an event which is capable of opening the basic horizon of sense for the living mind-body (think, for instance, of a child first fixing his gaze on an object, and then pointing to it while emitting a few sounds). Perception and expression are complementary functions. The focusing of an object against a background, which is often accompanied by an indicating gesture, is the founding element of both. This leads us to consider the index as the constituent element of all languages, demarking the asymmetrical relation between our bodies and the surrounding space. Deixis is the basis of every difference-relation in an ordinary language, conceived as a system of historically given differences. This system is composed of marked terms and unmarked ones, that is, of a set of asymmetrical relations that articulate the fundamental asymmetry inherent in bodily perception and motion. The whole of language can thus be regarded as a system of differences that are neither neutral nor arbitrary, but rather marked and motivated, right from the start – a system by which means the subject has once been able to settle in its environment, using language both as a basic techno-logical framework (Gestell) and archive (Bestand) (Heidegger 1977). This framework and reserve of meaning, like every other technical device, do not lie outside of man, but rather constitutes an extension and articulation of his body, which is subject to both motion and emotion. We should be aware by now that the use of personal computers and word processing programmes has changed our whole sensibility with respect to writing and language. They have both modified the relationship between eye and hand in the act of writing, and that between perception and bodily expression for a given subject in its own environment. As a consequence of this, our relation with language as an indexical issue is utterly modified. Working with wordprocessing programmes, in some way restores the index to the ancient prominence it had been deprived of by the advent of writing, but also tends to change its function in games of language. Typing on a keyboard obeys in fact a sort of double articulation between the space of signs and that of commands. While you are typing with a writing programme, you are in fact composing a text while disposing of a hypertext. This change in the relation between eye and hand can be easily grasped when the cursor shifts its shape on the computer screen (for example when the vertical

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flashing bar becomes an arrow, and then a little hand with a pointing finger): in this case the cursor is just moving from the space of signs to that of commands – in other words, from signification to interaction. A move of this kind is bound to affect not only the status of writing as such but also our attitude towards language as a whole. It affects in fact our way of situating ourselves in the surrounding territory and of marking it out, starting from indication as the founding act of language. The technical modifications of deixis implied in the use of digital interfaces are thus going to change our whole sense of language as the substrate of our being-here-now, and with it the horizontal structure of every possible experience. What is changing utterly then is also our grasp of the world as an intentional act of our body, in which synaesthesia and motility, perception and expression, draw the line of our existence. From this perspective and at this stage of transition from the civilisation of print to that of electronic media, the whole of language begins to appear to us less and less ›natural,‹ more technical and re-mediated.5 Our powerful digital machines that use statistical procedures are for instance already able to recognise the frequency of certain clusters of words or particular clich¤s, a preference for a certain type of syntactic construction and its degree of complexity in a given document, and to compare these elements with those contained in a number of other selected documents. They can thus recognise the »voice,« the signature, or the style of a given author often better than a literary expert can do.6 And if »the style is the man,« one can but wonder whether a computer can know us better than we do. In any case, neither embracing cybernetic fundamentalism, nor belittling the dramatic impact of digital technology, we certainly ought to pose anew the question of the relation between artificial and human intelligence, and between machine language and »natural« language, in their common space of performance, between the first organic demarcation of an environment and its further technological expansion in the course of time; between the na€ve gesture of pointing to an object and the building of a whole sophisticated system of culture – or in a more up-to-date figure: between the finger of the hand and its digital semblance on a screen, pointing to the presence of a hypertextual link.

5 For the concept of »remediation« see Marshall McLuhan (1987), Bolter and Grusin (2000). It is related to the concept of writing as pharmakon (remedy-poison), discussed by Plato in the Phaedrus (274e-275a), at the time of transition from oral to written culture. 6 This has already been the case for texts by Shakespeare and for a number of ancient and modern apocrypha (Johnson 1997, 160 ff).

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References: Armand, Louis (2006) Literate Technologies: Language, Cognition, Technicity, Prague: Litteraria Pragensia. Bolter, Jay D., Richard Grusin (2000) Remediation, Cambridge, Mass. and London: The MIT Press. De Mauro – Paravia (2002 – 2009) Il dizionario dei sinonimi e contrari, http://www.demauroparavia.it/. Heidegger, Martin (1977) The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt, New York: Harper & Row. Jakobson, Roman (1980) Magia della parola, ed. Krystyna Pomorska, trans. Michele Sampaolo, Bari: Laterza. Leroi-Gourhan, Andr¤ (1964) Le geste et la parole, Paris: Albin Michel. Lotman, Jurij M. (1992) La semiosfera. L’asimmetria e il dialogo nelle strutture pensanti, ed. and trans. Simonetta Salvestroni, Venezia: Marsilio. Matejka, Ladislav, Krystyna Pomorska (eds) (1971), Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Maturana, Humberto (1980) »Biology of Cognition«, in Maturana, Humberto, Francisco Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living, Boston: Kluver. McLuhan, Marshall (1987) Understanding Media, London: Routledge. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1995) Linguaggio, storia, natura, Milano: Bompiani. Morin, Edgar (1973) Le paradigme perdu: la nature humaine, Paris: du Seuil. Robins, Robert H. (1967) A Short History of Linguistics, London: Longman. Saussure, Ferdinand de (1977) Course in General Linguistics, ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye with Albert Reidlinger, trans. Wade Baskin, Glasgow: Fontana/Collins.

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Toward a Closed-Open Typology: Language System, Systems Theory and a Phenomenology of an Organization-Structure Interface Changes in a language system cannot be understood without reference to the system which undergoes them […]. The structural laws of the system restrict the inventory of possible transitions from one state to another. These transitions are, we repeat, a part of the total linguistic code, a dynamic component of the overall language system. Roman Jakobson, On Language

»The central issue of the structuralist theory,« with which all architectonical problems of language »are closely connected,« as Josef Vachek succinctly epitomizes it in his The Linguistic School of Prague: An Introduction to Its Theory and Practice, is »the question of what kind of system language constitutes« (1966, 27 – 28). The answers to this issue have been, since the inception of the question, many and diverse. Broadly defined by V.V. Vinogradov as »a system of systems« (quoted in Vachek 1966, 28), for instance, language is understood from this perspective as constituted by »a number of sub-systems or levels, each of which has its own particular structure« (Vachek 1966, 28). These sub-systems or levels are, in addition, »organized internally and systematically related to each other« (Tobin 1988, 50). Sustaining such a language system, both structurally and functionally, is an »inner tension,« a »basic antinomy,« or a disequilibrium, between »its solid central core« (Vachek 1966, 32, 27), characterized by a »›flexible stability,‹ proper to the whole, organized as a system,« as Karel Hausenblas observes in his reading of Vil¤m Mathesius (1994, 325), and its »periphery,« which, Vachek promptly specifies, »need not be in complete accordance with the laws and tendencies governing its central core« (1966, 27). As such, changes in language are perceived as »systematic and goal directed« (Jakobson 1990, 170), featuring what Nikolai S. Trubetzkoy calls, in his letter response to Roman Jakobson in 1926, a »rational character,« which »stems directly from the fact that language is a system« (quoted in Jakobson 1990, 170). More specifically,

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these changes in language are motivated therapeutically, argues Vachek in his reading of the Saussurean »finishing touches« on this Jakobsonian idea, by the system of language »striving after some kind of balance of its elements,« and by remedying »some structural defects« in any given segment of the system, the success of which leads, however, only to jeopardizing once again this newly established balance, which is now manifested in »the rise of another weak point in some other part of the system« (1966, 21, 25). As enlightening as they are useful, these answers have fore-grounded, however, only one aspect of language: its composition or makeup as a closed system, self-sufficient, self-sustained, and self-organizing. In theorizing language as »an autonomous system« in these terms (Vachek 1966, 158), one concomitant issue has thus remained in a shrouded state of ambiguity, and the issue in question is the differentiation function of language in relation to its environment, a function whereby language turns receptively open, albeit conditionally, capable of interacting with the fluctuations in its surroundings for the purpose of its own selfreorganization and survival. As early as in 1978, Robert Lilienfeld, in his study and critique of systems theory, captures this polemic and calls attention to its underlying assumption, an assumption on the basis of which a system is perceived willy-nilly as such. He points out, rather emphatically, that »The system, if it is to be a system, must not only have boundaries; it must also be a closed system«; but what makes the issue more complex is that »Dealing with a ›natural reality‹ is always a matter of dealing with an open reality,« he continues; and to the extent a given system engages the natural reality at all, »One cannot make a closed system just by assumption. This is a difficulty that appears to be completely evaded by systems theorists« (1978, 248). Neither can one make an open system just by assumption, and the same difficulty can be argued as having met a similar fate in the hitherto conceptualization of language as a system and of the language-environment relation. Much to the relief of the scholarly urgency therein, this critical phenomenon has received some renewed attention lately. The recent publication of a collection of essays titled, rather tellingly, Dynamic Structure: Language as an Open System, for instance, brings to the forefront the very difficulty that Lilienfeld has identified. If, as Jan Sokol makes it clear, language presents an »authoritative institution« endowed with »[t]his ordering role […] vis-”-vis the terrible flood of experience« (2007, 32), and if, as Alice Klikov also observes, »[t]he system of signs is perfect and closed,« armed with »some a priori given building plan,« the question then becomes, to put it in Klikov’s apt words again, »how the closed and fixed system of signs can become an open dynamic structure« in its interaction with the environment (2007, 168, 182). Phrased as such, Klikov’s question alludes, in one sense, to its own answer. At once conceptual and linguistic, this answer is amply suggested by a particular

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discursive feature that characterizes the thinking and writing in the anthology. More specifically put, the problem that underlies and prompts Klikov’s question of »how« finds its expression, implicitly but symptomatically, in the rather habitual use of certain terminologies throughout this collection of essays and, explicitly though inadvertently, in Ondrˇej Sldek’s important assertion in his essay that, in »the concept of linguistics« of and from Saussure, »the term ›structure‹ is essentially equivalent to ›system‹« (2007, 53). Here, then, lies the problem. In theorizing language as a system in relation to its environment, in other words, the poverty of vocabulary results in a conceptual gridlock, and it is the indiscriminate, synonymous employment of »system« and »structure« that has prevented a conceptual progress toward an assumption-less answer to the question of »how.« That being said, to de-synonymize »system« and »structure« is to initiate a conceptual shift in rethinking language as a system, a shift from »[seeking] a vocabulary for ideas,« as the American Language poet Lyn Hejinian describes, with a subtle language twist pertinent to the problem in question here, to »[seeking] ideas for vocabularies« (2000, 27). In this respect, the research findings in the study of organizations in biology have proved to be not only conceptually informative and analogically suggestive, but also theoretically modifiable and pragmatically applicable.1 The works of Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela, in particular, offer a functional modal of autopoiesis which, when read as an »explanatory analogy« (Gentner

1 In understanding of any subject, the reference to and the use of theories, data, and practices from other fields are crucial and, in this exploratory process, models, metaphors, and analogies play a fundamentally constructive role in cognitive and epistemological thinking. Describing them as »speculative instruments« of an interdisciplinary methodology, Max Black, for instance, defines their function as »wedding« that illuminates reciprocally between different domains: »They, too, bring about a wedding of disparate subjects, by a distinctive operation of transfer of the implications of relatively well-organized cognitive fields. And as with other weddings, their outcomes are unpredictable. Use of a particular model may amount to nothing more than a strained and artificial description of a domain sufficiently known otherwise. But it may also help us to notice what otherwise would be overlooked, to shift the relative emphasis attached to details—in short, to see new connections.« (1962, 237) Thinking very much in the same vein, Henri Poincar¤ drives this point home in terms of mathematical analogies. He writes: »We may perceive mathematical analogies between phenomena which have physically no relation either apparent or real, so that the laws of one of these phenomena aid us to discover those of others. […] What is the result? These theories seem images copied one from the other ; they are mutually illuminating, borrowing their language from each other. […] Thus mathematical analogies not only make us foresee physical analogies, but besides do not cease to be useful when these latter fail.« (1958, 79)

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1982, 118),2 sheds important light on language as a closed system and on its »functional dialectology« (Hausenblas 1994, 322) whereby to open to changes in the environment. In The Tree of Knowledge, Maturana and Varela’s theorizing of system is grounded, first and foremost, in a clear distinction between the two parts of which a system consists: its organization and its structure, hence the formula of »system (organization + structure)« vis-”-vis »environment (everything outside the system’s boundaries)« (Wolfe 1998, 60). By their account, the organization of a system is defined as that which »signifies those relations that must be present in order for something to exist,« and which »denotes those relations that must exist among the components of a system for it to be a member of a specific class«; whereas the structure of a system is specified as that which »denotes the components and relations that actually constitute a particular unity and make its organization real« (1987, 42, 47).3 Moreover, a system works when its organization and its structure faithfully play out their respectively designated roles. The organization, for instance, aims at maintaining the taxonomical identity of the system, and is characterized by an »operational closure« (1987, 89), which means that the system, as a self-refer2 As Dedre Gentner has cogently argued, analogies, together with models and metaphors, function »as structure-mappings between complex systems,« and these structural-mappings focus on »analogical relatedness« or »relational predicates« but »not literal similarity« or »object attributes«; as such, »analogies must be viewed as comparisons between systems and cannot be analyzed as simple comparisons between objects« (1982, 108, 109). In addition, theorized as »a system of mappings,« an analogy, according to Gentner, is characterized by the following »structural qualities« (1982, 113) as its evaluative criteria. The first is »base specificity : the degree to which the structure of the base is explicitly understood« (1982, 113). The second is »internal-structural characteristics,« which include 1) »clarity,« referring to »the precision with which the object mappings are defined, that is, exactly how the base nodes are mapped onto the target nodes and which set of predicates gets carried across«; 2) »richness: roughly, the quantity of predicates that are imported«; and 3) »systematicity,« that is, »the degree to which the predicates imported belong to a mutually constraining conceptual system« (1982, 114). And the third is the »external qualities,« including 1) »validity,« which »refers to the correctness of the imported predicates in the target«; and 2) »scope,« which »refers to the number of different cases to which the model validity applies« (1982, 117 – 118). In this sense, explanatory analogy foregrounds »clarity and systematicity,« emphasizing »an abstract, well-clarified, coherent system of relations,« Gentner thus makes it clear, and it is »high in clarity, abstractness, scope and systematicity, but not in richness« (1982, 122, 123, 124). 3 Maturana and Varela’s explanatory analogy of »organization,« »structure,« and the distinction between them is a toilet: »Thus, for instance, in a toilet the organization of the system of water-level regulation consists in the relations between an apparatus capable of detecting the water level and another apparatus capable of stopping the inflow of water. The toilet unit embodies a mixed system of plastic and metal comprising a float and a bypass value. This specific structure, however, could be modified by replacing the plastic with wood, without changing the fact that there would still be a toilet organization« (1998, 47).

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ential, self-producing, and self-organizing entity, is operationally »closed […] on the level of organization« (Wolfe 1998, 60) so as to be, and remain, what it is. At the same time, the structure works to facilitate adjustments and changes of the system, and is identified by a functional openness, which means that the system stays functionally »open to environmental perturbations on the level of structure« (Wolfe 1998, 60), where »these interactions [with environment] continuously trigger […] the structural changes that modulate its dynamics of states« (Maturana and Varela 1987, 169). Furthermore, while »[e]nvironmental ›triggers‹ and ›perturbations‹ […] take place on the level of structure,« as Gary Wolfe makes it clear, »what may be recognized as a perturbation or trigger is specified by the [system’s] organization and operational closure« (1998, 60).4 In this sense, Maturana and Varela’s concept of system in terms of an organization-structure interface thus presents what might be called a »closedopen« typology for language, a »holistic, schematized« typology (Seiler 1990, 156), that is, in light of which language is understood as a dynamic system predicated upon an organization-based, synchronic-operational closure selfreferentially engaged in a structure-based, diachronic-functional openness. To this holistic and schematized closed-open typology of language as a system, Henri Atlan and his work can be read as having contributed pertinent and detailed theoretical elaborations, elucidating, in particular, the specific mechanisms of the structural-functional axis as the site where language turns open to its environment. Equally significant is that these elaborations resonate, from the perspective of bio-informational complexity, with the concepts of »quantitative evaluation« (Sgall 1995, 60) and the »implicational correlations« (Shibatani, Bynon 1995, 6, 11) theorized by the Prague School of linguistics. In his seminal article of 1974 titled »On a Formal Definition of Organization,« Atlan postulates his own revisionist alternative based upon his rethinking of the »two major trends, contradicting each other,« in »the various proposed definitions of organization«: seeing organization, on the one hand, as »constraints between parts, or regularity and order, where order is viewed essentially as repetitive order, i. e. redundancy,« and, on the other hand, as »non-repetitive order, which is measured by an information content in Shannon’s sense (1949), i. e. a degree of unexpectedness directly related to variety and un-homogeneity« (296). Atlan’s own alternative approach is called »a formal quantitive [sic] definition of organization,« and the idea he proposes to use as the basis for his definition is that of an »optimization process so that any optimum organization

4 Emil Volek makes a similar observation on this point. He writes: »A further characteristic of all living organisms is that they do not respond to impulses from outside in a causal-mechanical way, but do so with their own specific reactions« (2007, 189).

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would correspond to a compromise between maximum information content (i. e. maximum variety) and maximum redundancy« (296). At work in Atlan’s above theorem on organization are two constitutive concepts, in the sense that »›Organization‹ is used to mean« both »a state« and »a process« (1974, 296). There is, therefore, the »state of organization of a system« (»optimum organization«), and the »optimization process« (»compromise«) of that system, a process specified later as having a »structural character« as well as »functional features« (1974, 301). The dynamic relation between the state of the organization and its structural-functional process can thus be paraphrased in terms of a closed-open typology. In other words, the condition of a system is stable and optimum when its organization executes an operational closure that embodies and sustains a state of equilibrium, according to which maximum information content from the environment is allowed and processed on the level of the structure only to the point where a reduction of complexity succeeds in producing redundancy – i. e., a »generalization of repetition« defined as measurable, quantitative constraints between elements »so that knowledge about one of them provides automatically some knowledge about another« (Atlan 1984, 111) – and where this redundancy works as what William Paulson calls an »error-correcting code« (1988, 58) whereby the resultant certainty or order from variety can be recognized and acknowledged by the organization and its operational closure. Or, what amounts to saying the same thing, the state of a system is stable and optimum when its structure opens to a variety of information content in the environment only to the extent that the embraced diversity of information is compromised properly enough to reach a degree of conformity acceptable by the organization and its operational closure, and that the complexity of the information content is reduced proportionally enough so as not to seriously overwhelm the organization’s overall regulatory configurations. In this sense, Atlan’s conceptualization of organization can be seen as consisting of two interrelated, mutually constituted dimensions: an organization that materializes the optimum state of a system by being operationally closed to itself, and a structure that actualizes the process of the same system by being functionally open to optimizing from its environment. More specifically, Atlan’s theory of organization thus delineated is grounded in his notion of an organization as »a three-dimensional space,« which is defined by what he refers to respectively as »three parameters« and »three quantities« at work on both levels of the organization and the structure (1974, 301). Atlan writes: A given organization is defined at least by three parameters, which determine the main features of its characteristic function H(t). One of them is the initial in-

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formation content Ho and has a structural meaning. A second parameter, with a dimension of time, has the meaning of a functional reliability, related to the overall resistance of the system to noise-producing factors. The third parameter, namely the initial redundancy Ro, is both structural and functional in character, since structural redundancy is known to help insure reliability. (1974, 295)

In other words, constitutive of the ontological identity and the optimum state of a system as operationally closed on the level of its organization by first determining and then sustaining its information content with time and over time [H(t)], the three parameters of initial information content [Ho], initial redundancy [Ro], and time, which is encoded later as [tM] (1974, 301), are engaged simultaneously in an openness to, or an interactive process with, the environmental triggers and perturbations on the level of the structure, from where changes on the parameter Ho implicate the system’s structural aspect, variations on the parameter tM, the system’s functional dimension, and fluctuations on the parameter Ro, the system’s structural as well as functional condition. Of these three defining parameters, initial redundancy, which is both structural and functional in character, is considered as the most crucial factor, upon whose changes pivot both the identity and the self-organizing potential of the organization. »Whether or not the organization can exhibit self-organizing properties, depends on the value of the initial redundancy Ro,« Atlan asserts; and »[s]ince these self-organizing properties are a consequence of a decrease in R,« Atlan continues, »a minimum value of Ro from which this decrease can start is necessary« (1974, 301). In addition, the importance of redundancy R in a given organization also lies in that its presence or absence determines the types of information content therein. »H is the information content of a message or system with internal constraints between the parts,« Atlan explains, »Hmax is the maximum information content computed by not taking into account the constraints, i. e. by assuming complete independence of the parts,« and »Hmaxo, [is] the initial maximum information content when redundancy is ignored,« which presents »a measure of the structural aspect of organization« (1974, 299, 301). With its ratio properly maintained and proportionally reduced, redundancy hence constitutes the structural-functional condition for an organization and its optimum state, which is manifested in its information content with time and over time. With redundancy thus situated in relation to other parameters, »[t]he process of organization of any system,« Atlan points out, »is described by the variation of information content with time, H(t), which itself is the combination of two related functions: the decrease of redundancy, and the decrease of maximum information content« (1974, 301). In this light, the fluctuations of information

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content with time are the consequences of these two related functions in that the »decrease in redundancy leads to an increase in maximum information content,« which enhances the organization’s self-organizing potential by »[allowing] for more possibilities in regulatory performances« (1974, 300); whereas the decrease in maximum information content incurs the increase in redundancy, which renders the organization incapable of sustaining its self-organizing potential due to the increased repetition of its existing information content and, as a result, the decreased possibilities in regulatory performances. Further, these two related functions »are themselves two different functions of time« and, together, they »express the overall organization of the system, both structural and functional,« by expressing »the kinetics of the effects of noise on the system« (1974, 299). The parameter of time is, in this sense, characterized by these two different functions. The decrease of redundancy, for instance, is seen as the function of time when time, in this context, »means accumulated effects of noise-producing factors,« or »the effects of time as those of accumulated random noise producing factors acting from the environment« (1974, 299, 297). By contrast, the decrease of the maximum information content is perceived as the function of time when time is considered as having »the meaning of a functional reliability, related to the overall resistance of the system to noise-producing factors,« and »The value of the reliability« is understood in terms of »the inertia opposed to random perturbations« (1974, 295, 301). As such, »Avery high reliability will correspond to a very long phase of growth or increase in H(t);« Atlan explains, »on the contrary, a small reliability will determine a very short duration for this phase« (1974, 301 – 302). Whichever the case, these two different functions of time articulate two types of effects of noise, effects that are also termed as »ambiguity« and »written as a function of noise, or […] as a function of time« (1974, 297). According to Atlan, two possible effects of noise acting in two opposite directions can be considered, and correspond to two kinds of ambiguities, one counted negatively and the other positively. The first one is related to a »destructive ambiguity« and has the classical meaning of a disorganizing effect. The second one is related to what we called an »autonomy-producing ambiguity,« because it acts by increasing the relative autonomy of one part versus the other, or, in other words, by decreasing the overall redundancy of the system. (1974, 298)

That being said, Atlan thus epitomizes his theory on self-organizing system and its organization-structure interface in relation to the environment, to which the

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system remains closed on the level of its organization but open on the level of its structure: […] we propose to call self-organization a process where the change in organization with increased efficiency, although it is induced by the environment, is not directed by a programme but occurs under the effects of random environmental factors. According to this view, a self-organizing system is a system redundant enough and functioning in such a way that it can sustain a decrease in redundancy under the effects of errorproducing factors without ceasing to function. This decrease in redundancy leads to an increase in information content or variety which allows for more possibilities in regulatory performances […] In other words, self-organization appears as a continuous disorganization constantly followed by reorganization with more complexity and less redundancy. (1974, 300; my emphasis)

But the significance of the research findings in biology and its conceptual purchase on the theorizing of language as a system are not just confined to the formal definition of system and its organization-structure interface. Equally significant is that they introduce and foreground the human factor, whose role is at once limited and constitutive. It functions as the triggering mechanism on the level of the structure, from where the human action of observation presents »an expression of structural coupling,« as Maturana and Varela contend, »which always maintains compatibility between the operation of the organism and its environment« (1987, 172). Central to Maturana and Varela’s concept of observation, which is aphoristically summed up as »[e]verything said is said by someone« (1987, 26), is the notion that observation is an »embodied action« (Varela et al. 1991, 172). The importance of this notion lies in that the embodied observation, contra epistemological reduction, privileges a »nonreductionist relation between the phenomenon to be explained and the mechanism that generates it« by refusing to »bring forth a generative relation between otherwise independent and nonintersecting phenomenal domains« (Maturana 1991, 34). For the observer, as Maturana and Varela have defined in The Tree of Knowledge, is »not a preexisting reference nor in reference to an origin, but as an ongoing transformation in the becoming of the linguistic world« that the observer builds with other fellow observers (1987, 235). In this light, »As observers we can see a unity in different domains, depending on the distinctions we make,« they write; and all these different observations »are necessary to complete our understanding of a unity« (1987, 135). More specifically, they continue, [i]t is the observer who correlates them from his outside perspective. It is he who recognizes that the structure of the system determines its interactions by speci-

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fying which configurations of the environment can trigger structural changes in it. It is he who recognizes that the environment does not specify or direct the structural changes of a system. The problem begins when we unknowingly go from one realm to the other and demand that the correspondences we establish between them (because we see these two realms simultaneously) be in fact a part of the operation of the unity. (1987, 135 – 136; my emphasis)

Maturana and Varela’s idea of an embodied observation finds its cognate but more concrete expression in Henri Atlan’s »the eye of an observer« (1984, 117). As he has stated earlier, the process of an organization of any system is described by the variation of information content with time, which is itself the combination of two related functions of decrease of redundancy and decrease of maximum information content, which in turn are the two different functions of time expressing two different types of effects of noise. Autonomy producing or destructive, the nature of noise is neither predetermined nor objective, however. It is, rather, a matter of changing positions an observer takes on the level of the structure. For ambiguity, written as a function of noise, »can bear opposite signs according to whether we are interested in the information transmitted in a channel […] or in the information content of a system containing the channel« (Atlan 1974, 297). Moreover, the idea of positioning as such implies the notion of structure as consisting of layers of integrated structures where the change of sign from destructive to autonomy producing and vice versa takes place. In his 1984 article entitled »Disorder, Complexity and Meaning,« Atlan specifies further this changing positioning as »chunking,« i. e., »a complete change in perspective« at the structural level of integration that signifies informational complexity at the level of the organization: Chunking implies a complete change in perspective: the most heterogeneous set of elements is seen as homogenous when it is chunked and itself viewed as an element at a higher level of integration. Chunking, when one goes from one level to the other, amounts to transforming heterogeneity into homogeneity, and this corresponds to a change of sign in the effects of noise when one goes from one level to the other. […] Using noise, i. e., random perturbations, to un-tighten the constraints at one level produces some heterogeneity, […] the very same heterogeneity can be seen as a new state of order, having more complexity and less redundancy if it is used at a higher, more integrated level. In other words, moving from one level to the other produces a change in sign of the effect of noise in a channel of communication – a change from negative, when it is subtracted from the information transmitted in the channel, to positive, when it is a measure of the additional variety introduced by loosening the constraints. (1984, 116 – 17)

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As such, this notion of »chunking« has received a similar and yet more literaryanalogical rendering from Michel Serres. In his essay titled »The Origin of Language: Biology, Information Theory, and Thermodynamics,« which is included in Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy, Serres speculates upon a general theory of language by positing that language is a »living organism,« a »homeorrhesis,« which consists of »a series of successive apparatuses called levels of integration« (1982, 74, 77). In this »multiple, integrated system,« each level of integration functions as »a filter, a rectifier,« and noise, so claims Serres, »only makes sense in relation to an observer,« whose changing position from one level to another »effects a move from the noise-information couple to the meaning-obstacles couple and finally to meaning« (1982, 76, 79). More specifically, this »change of sign occurs,« according to Serres, »for a certain function entering into the computation« (1982, 77), and this function is identified as the function of ambiguity and its transformations in relation to observation: In other words, this function, called ambiguity and resulting from noise, changes when the observer changes his point of observation. Its value depends on whether he is submerged in the first level or whether he examines the entire unit from the next level. In a certain sense, the next level functions as a rectifier, in particular, as a rectifier of noise. What was once an obstacle to all messages is reversed and added to the information. […] From a point of view within the system, the transmission of information along a given circuit from one element to another subtracts ambiguity because it is a noise, an obstacle to the message. For an observer outside the system, ambiguity must be added, for it increases the system’s complexity. It functions in this case as information at the level of the unit’s organization. In one case, it covers up; in the other case, it expresses. (Serres 1982, 77 – 78, 79 – 80)

In this sense, chunking presents what Serres calls in The Parasite a »torus of reversal« (1982, 69) between a banquet conversation and a phone conversation, in that one’s participatory position in or geographical proximity to one conversation (say, that of the banquet), which makes its verbal exchanges intelligible, turns the other conversation (say, that of the telephone) into a distant noise. It is, in other words, a reversal between »message with repressed noise« and »noise with repressed message,« thus designating, on the level of the structure, »a space of transformation of noise into message, and vice versa, for the observer« (1982, 69). Akin to Maturana and Varela’s theorem of embodied observation and its resistance to reductionist generalizations, Atlan’s notion of chunking as an embodied and complete change in perspective that results from using noise to un-tighten the constraints has, insofar as the observer is concerned, an important implication pertinent, in particular, to the understanding of language

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and language changes on the level of its structure. If, as Atlan points out, constraints between elements on one level denote the existence as well as the function of repetition or redundancy »so that knowledge about one of them [elements] provides automatically some knowledge about another,« chunking, by contrast, leads to a different level of information complexity, the order of which is »unknown« to an observer »but assumed to exist« (1984, 111, 117). Both »the logical difficulties« and »the richness of the analysis« of a self-organizing system, according to Atlan, lies therefore in the problematic that, while »information is assumed to be necessarily transmitted (together with chunking)« on the level of the structure »and the meaning of this information plays a central role in the functional organization of the whole, […] this meaning is not and cannot be known to the observer« on the level of the organization; and this is because, himself or herself being an ongoing transformation in the becoming of that same system rather than a preexisting point of reference vis-”-vis the system, the observer »can have empirical access only to each level [i.e., structure] by itself, and not to the passage from one to the other« (1984, 117). Differently put, the observer triggers a structural coupling with the open environment, but the coupling with the environment thus triggered has to be recognized by the organization and operational closure. Atlan points out that it is the role of these unknown, but crucial, meanings in self-organization that the complexity from noise principle expresses indirectly. Again, loosening the constraints at one level will create functional complexity and not mere disorganization only at a different, more integrated level, where the new relations created by the loosening will be integrated into a new functional organization having more diversity and less redundancy. […] So, self-organization viewed as noise-induced disorganization followed by reorganization implies such interplays between different levels, and describing self-organization as the utilization of noise to create functional complexity amounts to describing the creation of new, but still unknown, meanings in the information transmitted from one level to the other. In other words, what appears as organizational randomness to this observer outside the system implies creation of new meanings, yet unknown to the observer, within the system itself. (1984, 118)

In this sense, chunking presents itself as a threshold position where an observer situates himself or herself. It is an in-between position, a »torus of reversal,« between the structure and the organization, the knowable and the unknowable, the meaningful and the mysterious, where »the otherness of language, its failure to communicate precisely ourselves,« as William Paulson puts it paradoxically, »makes of it the bearer of something new« (1988, 103). Chunking, in other words, dramatizes the organization-structure interface by occupying the

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structure as the site of observation, from where the noise-producing eye of the observer disrupts the organization’s three defining parameters of information content, redundancy, and time, which in turn have to be concomitantly and continuously rewritten in order to maintain the organization’s ontological identity. The understanding of language system in such terms invites, then, an analogical appropriation of another concept in the studies of linguistics and biology : languaging. »Language itself is never in a state of rest,« asserts the American author of »language poetry« Lyn Hejinian (2000, 50). Her statement, as well as A.L. Becker’s emphasis on »[t]he shift from noun to verb, from language as an abstract thing of some sort to languaging as an act« (1991, 228), resonate with Jos¤ Ortega y Gasset’s contention that language »is always making and unmaking itself« (quoted in Becker 1991, 228). From this perspective, Maturana and Varela’s definition that »[l]anguage is an ongoing process that only exists as languaging, not as isolated items of behavior« (1987, 210) can be interpreted as a definition of language as an autonomous, living, and self-organizing system, which consists of its organization operationally closed to itself (»an ongoing process«) on the one hand, and, on the other hand, its structure functionally open to the environment (»exists as languaging«). More specifically, languaging finds its expression in »structural coupling« (Maturana and Varela 1987, 246) and, thereby, in »orienting« (Becker 1991, 229) both the organization and the observer. In addition, languaging is embodied or carried out by none other than the observer who, »constituted in language,« languages in language (Maturana and Varela 1987, 234 – 35, 210). To such a statement with a rather poetic flare, Atlan adds what seems to be a note of sobriety and explicit uncertainty. The difficulty in addressing all these self-referential issues in language, he points out in his 1984 article, lies in the fact that language is itself an organization as such. »Making use of language is making use of the kind of order always implicit in the use of language,« Atlan writes, »[t]alking about order, complexity and so on is doing something in language which has to do with what order, complexity, etc., are supposed to be« (1984, 109). With this insight into the nature of language as a self-referential system, Atlan then problematizes »meaning« itself by footnoting his own thesis on self-organization in the form of a »double parenthesis.« »Parenthetically,« he remarks, »I would add that by meaning, I do not necessarily refer to what is meant in human communication, because we do not know enough about what meaning is in the human language (and I suspect we do not know enough because human language is itself a self-organizing system)« (1984, 110). That being said, to the structuralist question of what kind of system language constitutes, the answer could be, tentatively and with qualifications, that, predicated upon a closed-open typology, language is a dynamic system »in a con-

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tinuous becoming that we,« the observers actively engaged in languaging, »bring forth« (Maturana and Varela 1987, 235) at its organization-structure interface.

References: Atlan, Henri (1974) »On a Formal Definition of Organization,« Journal of Theoretical Biology, 45.2: 295 – 304. Atlan, Henri (1984) »Disorder, Complexity and Meaning,« in Livingston, Paisley (ed.) Disorder and Order : Proceedings of the Stanford International Symposium, Saratoga, Cal.: Anma Libri, 109 – 28. Becker, A. L. (1991) »A Short Essay on Languaging,« in Steier, Frederick (ed.) Research and Reflexivity, London: Sage, 226 – 34. Black, Max (1962) Models and Metaphors, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Gentner, Dedre (1982) »Are Scientific Analogies Metaphors?« in Miall, David S. (ed.) Metaphor: Problems and Perspectives, Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 106 – 32. Hausenblas, Karel (1994) »Approach to Standard Language, Its Culture, and to Style,« in Luelsdorff, Philip A. (ed.) The Prague School of Structural and Functional Linguistics, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 311 – 32. Hejinian, Lyn (2000) The Language of Inquiry, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Jakobson, Roman (1990) On Language, Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press. Klikov, Alice (2007) »Lived Worlds and the Systems of Signs: Uexkîll’s Biosemiotics,« in Fehr, Johannes, Petr Kouba (eds) Dynamic Structure: Language as an Open System, Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 163 – 85. Lilienfeld, Robert (1978) The Rise of Systems Theory : An Ideological Analysis, New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Maturana, Humberto R., Francisco J. Varela (1987) The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding, revised edition, Boston and London; Shambhala. Maturana, Humberto R. (1991) »Science and Daily Life: The Ontology of Scientific Explanations,« in Steier, Frederick (ed.) Research and Reflexivity, London: Sage, 30 – 52. Paulson, William R. (1988) The Noise of Culture: Literary Texts in a World of Information, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Poincar¤, Henri (1958) The Value of Science, New York: Dover. Seiler, H. (1990) »Language Typology in the UNITYP Model,« in Bahner, W. et al (eds) Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress of Linguistics, Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 155 – 67. Serres, Michel (1982) Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Serres, Michel (1982) The Parasite, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Shibatani, Masayoshi, Theodora Bynon (1995) »Approaches to Language Typology : A

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Conspectus,« in Shibatani, Masayoshi, Theodora Bynon (eds) Approaches to Language Typology, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 – 25. Sldek, Ondrˇej (2007) »Ferdinand de Saussure Interpreted by Jan Mukarˇovsky´ : Reception and Revision,« in Fehr, Johannes and Petr Kouba (eds) Dynamic Structure: Language as an Open System, Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 36 – 57. Sokol, Jan (2007) »Language and Experience,« in Fehr, Johannes and Petr Kouba (eds) Dynamic Structure: Language as an Open System, Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 27 – 35. Tobin, Yishai (1988) »Phonetics versus Phonology : The Prague School and Beyond,« in Tobin, Yishai (ed.) The Prague School and Its Legacy, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 49 – 70. Vachek, Josef (1966) The Linguistic School of Prague: An Introduction to Its Theory and Practice, Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. Varela, Francisco J. et al (1991) The Embodied Mind, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Volek, Emil (2007) »Habitats of Language/Language Inhabited: From Ostension and Umwelt to the Possible Worlds of Communication and Culture,« in Fehr, Johannes and Petr Kouba (eds) Dynamic Structure: Language as an Open System, Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 186 – 219. Wolfe, Cary (1998) Critical Environments: Postmodern Theory and the Pragmatics of the »Outside,« Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

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Martin Prochzka

Structure and the Philosophy of As-If: Wellek, Vaihinger and Iser

This chapter deals with the problem of fictions and the fictionality of structures, in a direction proposed recently by Wolfgang Iser. In his seminal book The Fictive and the Imaginary Iser, among others, alerts us to the relevance of the fictive as an operational mode of consciousness that makes inroads into existing versions of world. In this way, the fictive becomes an act of boundary crossing which, nonetheless, keeps in view what has been overstepped. As a result, the fictive simultaneously disrupts and doubles the referential world. (1993, xv)

In contrast to Iser, who, when he wrote this, was predominantly interested in the self-reflexive nature of the literary text »disclosing its own fictionality« (Iser 1993, 11) and in literature as a »paradigmatic process« of »worldmaking« (Iser 1989, 270).1 I focus on the fictive as an interface among language, human consciousness and the surrounding world. At the same time I acknowledge Iser’s importance in outlining this approach in his discussions of Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of discourse and Hans Vaihinger’s philosophy of fictions, pointing out important aspects of fiction, such as »modality,« »posit« and »differential« (Iser 1993, 110 – 52). And this orientation is also confirmed in Iser’s work-inprogress on culture as a »recursive process« (Iser 2004, 21 ff)2 whose completion was precluded by his sudden death in January 2007. The link between the philosophy of »as-if« and the theory of the Prague School may be negligible and perhaps even misleading, yet, as I will argue, it is important for understanding the specificity and important limitations of the Prague functionalist approach, which relies on the totalizing notion of a closed, 1 Iser refers to Goodman(1978). 2 An earlier English version of this lecture was delivered at a conference »Toward an Anthropological Humanism?« at UCLA Department of French & Francophone Studies, convened by FranÅoise Lionnet and Eric Gans on 4 March 2002.

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homogeneous and stratified sign system. In his Habilitationsschrift entitled Immanuel Kant in England 1793 – 1838 (1931) Ren¤ Wellek acknowledges the role of Hans Vaihinger as a »faithful intepreter« of Kant (1931, VI) and several times refers to his commentary to The Critique of Pure Reason. Apparently, Vaihinger also belonged to the readers of Wellek’s dissertation when it was still in manuscript form. Despite his respect for Vaihinger’s Kantian commentaries, Wellek never mentions his principal work on the Philosophy of »As If«: a fundamental revision of Kant’s transcendental approach replacing the noumena with the »fictional nature of ideational forms« (Vaihinger 2000, 94n). Wellek’s discussion of Kant’s influence in Britain3 introduces Kant’s philosophy as »one of the forces which awakened the English idealism,« which had almost dried out in the mid-eighteenth century, »to a new life« (Wellek 1931, 4). Rather than describing this awakening, Wellek emphasizes the importance of heterogeneity and a minute network of interacting forces in cultural history. Wellek’s comparative method goes beyond the schematism of the Prague School manifesting itself in the dichotomy of »immanent development« and »concretization« (Vodicˇka 1998, 67).4 This conclusion also rectifies recent attempts to see Wellek’s study of Kant’s reception as a »functional transformation of the foreign influence into a domestic literary context« (Posp„sˇil, Zelenka 1996, 48). In spite of this advanced functionalist approach, Wellek’s interpretation of Kant’s reception rests on a rigid value scheme. Wellek sees Kant’s philosophical thought as setting the norm of a comprehensive philosophical system, contrasting with the heterogeneous currents in British philosophy in the age of Romanticism.5 Unlike Wellek, Vaihinger sees a tension in Kant’s system, which

3 The word ›England‹ in the title of the book is misleading, since it contains the discussion of the response of Scottish philosophers, Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, Sir William Drummond and especially William Hamilton (Wellek 1931, 38 – 62). 4 According to Felix Vodicˇka, drawing on Mukarˇovsky´, »concretization« (konkretizace) is not only the product of the »intrinsic dynamic of development« (vlastn„ vy´vojov¤ dynamiky) of literature but also of deliberate efforts of certain privileged members of society, namely literary critics, and their ideological orientations. These representatives of the literary public are seen as »setting tasks« (kladou fflkoly) on the basis of the empirical understanding of life or deriving them from ideological postulates. Therefore the literary historian has to pay attention to the relation of »heteronomous elements to the immanent conditions of the new organization of the literary norm« (heteronomn„ch elementu˚ k imanentn„m podm„nkm nov¤ organizace literrn„ normy) (Vodicˇka 1998, 67, 59). 5 See, e. g. his criticism of the heterogeneous structure of Coleridge’s philosophy, based on a simple metaphor of a building executed in different styles: »Coleridge has built a building of no style or rather of mixed style. […] Coleridge’s structure has here a storey from Kant, there a part of the room from Schelling, there a roof from Anglican theology and so on. The architect did not feel the clash of the styles, the subtle and irreconcilable differences between the Kantian first floor and the Anglican roof. He had vaguely in mind the type of the building he wanted to build. […] Or, speaking without any

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may produce significant inconsistencies, if its concepts are proclaimed higher realities. According to him, in the first edition of The Critique of Pure Reason, the »Thing-in-Itself« was called »a mere idea, i. e. a fiction,« which can be compared with »Leibniz’s differentials.« This »limiting concept,« which has a methodological meaning in mathematics (and which Solomon Ma€mon compared to imaginary numbers), was then extended to »actual and ultimate reality« (Vaihinger 2000, 74 – 75). Apparently, for Vaihinger, Kant’s philosophy is a mere point of departure for the study of sciences and art as products of fictions. Discussing fictions, Vaihinger (as Bentham before him) points out their linguistic nature: modal construction AS IF is based on an ellipsis of a clause »as it would be if there were… « Suspending the statement of its conditional existence, the ellipsis facilitates a comparison of heterogeneous and incongruous ideas, which cannot be likened to one another on the basis of resemblance, common quantitative data, etc.: for instance »matter« and »atoms« or »circle« and »polygon« (2000, 94). Significantly, this structure does not function as a mere pattern of consciousness, but pragmatically as an interface, a device interrelating diverse structures or heterogeneous environments. As Vaihinger reminds us, emphasis is not laid on »the correspondence with an assumed »objective reality,« which can never be directly accessible to us,« nor on »the theoretical representation of the outer world in the mirror of consciousness and still less [on] the theoretical comparison of logical products with objective things,« but on the »practical corroboration […] experimental test of the utility of logical structures […]« (2000, 8). In noetic terms, the expression »as if« is »an impossible unreal assumption« under which »empirically given matter« must be subsumed (Vaihinger 2000, 93). As Iser interprets this reflection, the empirical matter (»what is given« – that is, »the real«) is not simply submitted to imaginative, let alone rational, processing. Rather, the »as if« functions »a kind of relay, insofar as it forces the imaginative into a form in order to open up the full range of possibilities« (Iser 1993, 146). According to Iser, it is not the theoretical scheme but »the practical purpose« that requires that consciousness remains dominant, so that the imaginative is present in the structure of consciousness only as an empty space. The empty space marks the possible influence of the imagination on the activities of consciousness – an influence brought about by the need to compare the incomparable. (Iser 1993, 146) metaphor, Coleridge had in mind a system, but what he accomplished is merely the heterogeneous combination of different systems.« (Wellek 1931, 67 – 68)

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The contradiction between the pragmatic nature of Vaihinger’s fictions and their aesthetic genealogy can be traced back to Schiller’s »theory of play as the primary element of artistic creation and enjoyment,« which induced Vaihinger to recognize »in play the ›As if‹, as the driving force of aesthetic activity and intuition« (Vaihinger 2000, xxv). Now for Iser this play arising »out of the coexistence of the fictive and the imaginary […] is both a product of activation [of the imaginary by the fictive] and the condition for the productivity brought about by the interaction it stimulates« (1993, xvii). On the one hand, Iser strives to integrate Derrida’s paradigm of supplement as both surplus and lack (»The impossibility of being present to ourselves becomes our possibility to play ourselves to fullness that has no bounds […]« Iser 1993, xviii; my emphasis), on the other hand he sees the play no longer in the modality of the »As If,« but in the final apocalyptic perspective, which can be articulated only by literature becoming a peculiar »As If« eschaton: »a panorama of what is possible« making »the interminable staging of ourselves appear as the postponement of the end« (Iser 1993, xix; my emphasis). Here Vaihinger’s bricolage, creating an endless multiplicity of fictions, is subjected to the »engineer« paradigm of the apocalypse, whose constant deferral cannot eliminate the »transcendental vantage point« (Iser 1993, 4)6 from which the fictive and the imaginary are orchestrated. This »well executed dance composed of many complicated figures and turns« (Schiller 1967, 300)7 may betray Iser’s propensity for the aesthetic ideology of Schiller’s »third joyous kingdom of play and fiction« built up unnoticeably »amidst the frightful realm of forces, and the sacred realm of laws« by »an aesthetic creative drive« (Schiller 1967, 215). Iser’s model of play as a postponed temporal closure clashes with the function of the »As If« as the interface, »the fictitious entity,« interposing itself »between thought and thing« and unfolding »a network of connections that compete with what is known for certain and seek to reach beyond it« (Iser 1993, 129). In contrast to the all-encompassing play, the structural paradigm of »as-if« implies, in Deleuze’s words, a different »reading« of time than the totalizing and circular Chronos of »the games, with which we are acquainted« (1990, 58): the »limited« Aion, »which divides itself infinitely in past and future and always eludes the present« (1990, 5). As Iser had noticed, already in Bentham’s thought the »›as if‹ indicates the difference—now minimalized but nevertheless ineradicable— between the two poles of will and reality« which appears to be »concealed by the 6 According to Iser, the »tacit knowledge« supporting »the old antithesis between fiction and reality« implies this point, which »can no longer be upheld in view of the transgressive operations of the fictionalizing act« (1993, 4). 7 See, e. g., Iser’s description of the interplay between the fictive and the imaginary : »the games played (ago¯n, mimicry, alea, ilinx)« (1993, xviii). For the categorization of the above types as games of »competition, chance, mimicry and vertigo« see Caillois (2001, 71 – 161).

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two modes of predication and representation« (Iser 1993, 126). Moreover, in Vaihinger’s thought, »the As-If manifests itself differently according to its pragmatically determined context […] does not embody a foundational principle,« and is a »function« that »precedes the structure,« revealing itself in »a basically limitless catalog of types of fiction.« Rather than characteristics of paradoxical Iser’s »models,« which »can give no information about what they are modelling« (1993, 50 – 51), these manifestations are closer to Deleuze’s notions of »event,« »sense,« »differentiator« or »ideal game« (1990, 11, 28, 51, 59) characterizing open dynamic structures in The Logic of Sense. Compared to Wellek, who saw the fictional world as the totalizing and hierarchized aesthetic »unity in variety«, based on »age old aesthetic terms« (Wellek, Warren 1949, 17), and as the »pattern, structure or organism« (1949, 221) created exclusively by artistic means, Iser transformed Vaihinger’s structural notion of fictions into a dynamic theory of interfacing the real, the fictive and the imaginary ; literature, sciences and the humanities. In The Fictive and the Imaginary he was still tempted to frame this theory by the eschaton of aesthetic ideology. Yet soon he discarded this frame and used the »As If« to develop a new, global theory of reception, no longer based on philosophical paradigms of the Enlightenment (Bildung, aesthetic state) or later philosophical systems (Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger) but drawing its power from the actual, historic conditions determining the existence of cultural theory and culture itself. In Iser’s own words, reception theory did not derive its parameters from a philosophy, as phenomenological or hermeneutic theories did, nor from a discipline such as psychology […]. Instead, it was engendered by a dilemma in which the study of literature found itself in the late 1950 s and 1960 s: namely, the conflict of interpretation. (2006a, 58)

The relevant aspect of this conflict between the approaches based on the assumption of meaning embodied in the text and those seeing meaning as a product of »presuppositions governing interpretation« is, as Iser further argues, »the inherent limitation of all presuppositions and hence their restricted applicability« (2006a, 59). The power of Iser’s approach consists in its ability to proceed beyond the obvious implications of relativism and perspectivism, envisaging texts (similar to the »as if« operator) as transformative apparatuses focusing the reader’s attention to specific »referential fields« and to »historical, cultural and literary systems« existing as interfaces between texts and reality. Through these systems, or »organizational units of the given world […] the contingencies and complexities of reality are reduced to meaningful structures« (Iser 2006a, 60 – 61). As Iser argued in the lecture »Culture: a Recursive Process« (2004, 21 ff)

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delivered during his last visit to Prague, in anthropological, biological and cybernetic terms, culture is not, as L¤vi-Strauss and many others believed, determined by its opposition to nature but emerges out of human relation to entropy. Since entropy escapes knowledge, it can be kept under control only by the »organizational units […] historical, cultural and literary systems« which are no mere static interfaces between humans and the universe, but dynamic loops of feedback (2004, 21)8 – acts of interaction, converting the entropic environment into a process engendering culture. Thus, culture as an environment produced by humans, is necessarily structured by their own acts. Referring to the anthropological theory of Eric Gans (1985), Iser links entropy to violence, thus pointing to the practical regulative function of culture as a means of preventing the escalation of conflicts. In performing this global mission, culture must keep the diversity, which, according to Iser, can be preserved only by means of dialogue. Unlike the models of Mukarˇovsky´ or Bakhtin, this dialogue, or, in Leroi-Gourhan’s words, »functional approximation« (1988, 155) does not have a generalized form: it exists among the individual human sciences as well as among teachers and students, different cultures, texts and their readers, literatures and their social conditions. Without it, not only the humanities, but the whole culture is »dead,« and will necessarily give way to »sheer violence« (Iser 2006b,15). The non-essentialist, practical humanist appeal of Iser’s theory of culture has a particular importance in approaching the legacy of Prague Structuralism, which as one of the first modern interdisciplinary movements attempted to overcome the split between theoretical formalism and empiricist historicism in the humanities. It is not suprising that in one of his last interviews, Iser spoke about his interest in reading representative works of historiography (2006b, 15), and that he even pursued his historical research in the Vienna archives. More importantly, Iser took a genuine interest in those tendencies of Prague Structuralism striving to overcome the limitations of the synchronic description of systems. Not accidentally, Vodicˇka’s main work, The Structure of Development, was on the reading list of the Thematic Network: Reception Studies, whose meetings Iser enriched by stimulating presentations and penetrating comments. Although it is to be deeply regretted that Iser will not visit Prague again, there is no doubt that the practical humanism of his work will stimulate all those trying to proceed beyond the schisms between structuralism and post-structuralism or sciences and humanities and increase the power of culture in the dangerous, unstable condition of the globalized world.

8 »Da sich Entropie der Wißbarkeit entzieht, lßt sich Kontrolle nur îber Rîckkoppelungsschleifen erzielen.« (Iser 2004, 21)

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Structure and the Philosophy of As-If: Wellek, Vaihinger and Iser

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References: Caillois, Roger (2001) Man, Play and Games, trans. Meyer Barash, Chicago and London: The University of Illinois Press. Deleuze, Gilles (1990) The Logic of Sense, ed. Constantin V. Boundas, trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, New York: Columbia University Press. Gans, Eric (1985) The End of Culture: Toward a Generative Anthropology, Berkeley : University of California Press. Goodman, Nelson (1978), Ways of Worldmaking, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. Iser, Wolfgang (1989) Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Iser, Wolfgang (1993) The Fictive and the Imaginary : Charting a Literary Anthropology, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Iser, Wolfgang (2004) Kultur: ein emergentes Phnomen, Podium, Nr. 33, Siegen: Universitt Siegen. Iser, Wolfgang (2006a) How To Do Theory, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Iser, Wolfgang (2006b) »Smyslem toho, co deˇlme, je dialog« [Dialogue is the Meaning of All We Do], an interview with Olga Lomov, Literrn„ noviny, 19 (9 May): 15. Leroi-Gourhan, Andr¤ (1988), Hand und Wort. Die Evolution von Technik, Sprache und Kunst, trans. Michael Bischoff, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. ˇ eskoslovensko (Ke korˇenu˚m Posp„sˇil, Ivo, Milosˇ Zelenka (1996) Ren¤ Wellek a mezivlecˇn¤ C strukturln„ estetiky) [Ren¤ Wellek and Czechoslovakia in the Period between the World Wars: Towards the Roots of Structural Aesthetics], Brno: Masarykova univerzita. Schiller, Friedrich (1967) On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters, ed. and trans. Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L.A. Willoughby, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Vaihinger, Hans (2000) The Philosophy of »As If«, trans. C.K. Ogden, reprinted, London and New York: Routledge. Vodicˇka, Felix (1998) Struktura vy´voje [Structure of Development], second edition, Prague: Dauphin. Wellek, Ren¤ (1931) Immanuel Kant in England: 1793 – 1838, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wellek, Ren¤, Austin Warren (1949) Theory of Literature, London: Jonathan Cape.

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Index

Aarts, Bas 103 Abercrombie, Lascelles 51, 102 Abu-Salim, Issam M. 54 – 55, 59 Adam, Martin 15, 129 – 130, 132, 136, 139 – 140 Adams, Valerie 238 Adorno, Theodor 376 Agamben, Giorgio 367 – 368, 377 Aitchison, Jean 223 Algeo, John 96, 103 Andersen, Gisle 164 – 165, 169, 176 Anderson, Benedict 381 Apollinaire, Guillaume 269 – 270 Aquinas, Thomas 74 Arens, Hans 73 Aristotle 74, 380 – 382 Armand, Louis 429 Arnold, Gordon Frederick 144 – 146 Aronoff, Mark 229, 237 Ashton-Warner, Sylvia 389, 405 – 409 Assmann, Aleida 247, 343 Atlan, Henri 250, 441 – 444, 446 – 450 Atti¤, Jo 287 Attridge, Derek 247, 332 – 333, 337 Auerbach, Erich 253 – 254, 259 Augustine, St. 74, 365 Austin, J.L. 295, 343 Avicenna 368 Bcklund, Ingegrd 180, 185 – 186, 188 Badiou, Alain 373 Bahti, Timothy 411 Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich 10, 247 – 248, 350 – 362, 392, 458

Balibar, Ãtienne 395 Bally, Charles 83, 142, 239, 291, 436 Bartels, Christine 120, 124 Barthes, Roland 305 – 306, 309, 311, 354, 359, 395 Baskin, Wade 291, 436 Bass, Alan 82, 410 Baudelaire, Charles 267, 350, 366 Baudrillard, Jean 371 Bauer, Laurie 230, 233 – 238 Bauer, Winifred 408, 410 Beaugrande, Robert de 129, 141 Beaver, David 120, 124 Bechmann, Gotthard 369 – 370, 372 Becker, A.L. 449, 450 Becker, Thomas 234, 238 Beethoven, Ludwig van 266 Benesˇov, Eva 126 Benjamin, Walter 329, 348, 361, 365 – 368, 372, 374 – 376, 381, 386 Bennett, Louise 389, 401 – 402, 404 Bennington, Geoffrey 82 Bentham, Jeremy 453, 455 – 456 Benveniste, Ãmile 66, 76, 82 Bernstein, Basil 406 Berthomieu, G¤rard 269 Biber, Douglas 179, 182, 188 Blackmur, R.P. 254 Blanchot, Maurice 368 Bloomfield, Louis 24, 295 Boccaccio, Giovanni 272 Booth, Wayne Clayson 293 Bosch, Peter 126 Bottiglioni, Gino 49

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462

Index

Boundas, Constantin V. 386, 459 Bouquet, Simon 84, 425 Bourdieu, Pierre 248, 387 – 410 Bowen, Donald J. 123 Brahe, Tycho 370 Braune, Wilhelm 49 Breivik, Leiv Egil 142 Brewster, Ben 410 Brinton, Laurel J. 165, 168 – 170, 173 Brogan, T.V.F 338 Brown, Gillian 141, 171, 174, 176, 194, 200, 203 Brown, Keith 192, 203 Buber, Martin 351 Bublitz, Wolfram 192, 198, 203 Buci-Glucksmann, Christine 366, 375 – 378 Burnˇov, Eva 127 Burbank, John 259, 338 Burchell, Graham 311 Burke, Kenneth 10, 246, 293 – 303 Bynon, Theodora 441 Cacciari, Cristina 226 Caffi, Claudia 172 Cahn¤, Pierre 279 Caillois, Roger 456, 459 Calfree, Robert C. 200 Callender, Craig 14, 41, 45 – 46, 59 Carnap, Rudolf 62, 68 – 69, 72 Carr, Gerald F. 59 Carroll, Lewis 404 Caxton, William 24, 62 Chafe, Wallace 144, 157, 226 Chamonikolasov, Jana 15, 143 – 144, 157 – 158 Chateaubriand, FranÅois Ren¤ 257 – 258 Chaucer, Geoffrey 26 Chomsky, Noah 39, 41, 113 – 114, 119, 124, 306 Clark, Katarina 354, 359 – 360 Cohn, Abigail 58 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 454 – 455 Collins, Dan 291 Conte, Maria-Elisabeth, 204 Cooper, C.R. 142 Cope, Bill 164, 216, 402

Corneille, Pierre 335 Cornulier, Beno‚t de 333, 334, 337 Coulthard, Malcolm 198, 204, Cruttenden, Alan 144 – 146, 158 Crystal, David 144 – 147, 158 Curley, Robert 200, 203 Curtius, Ernst Robert 254 ˇ ermk, Frantisˇek 76, 82 C ˇ ermk, Jan 17, 45, 86, 127, 189, 205, 229, C 238 ˇ ervenka, Miroslav 200, 204 C ˇ mejrkov, Sveˇtla 194, 204 C Daemrich, Horst S. 204 Daemrich, Ingrid 204 Dahl, §sten 122, 124 Daiches, David 297 Danesˇ, Frantisˇek 61, 73 – 74, 76, 107, 110, 112, 124, 144, 146, 158, 179 – 180, 185 – 185, 188, 194, 196 Danon-Boileau, Laurent 277 Dante, Alighieri 389, 399 – 400, 410 Darwin, Charles 370 Davies, Anna 71, 82 Debord, Guy 373 Delas, Daniel 261 – 262, 264 – 265, 267, 273 – 274 Deleuze, Gilles 246, 248, 250, 306, 309 – 311, 364, 373, 383 – 386, 456 – 457, 459 Derrida, Jacques 74 – 75, 82, 248, 281 – 282, 290, 315, 324, 338, 354, 364, 379 – 380, 383, 386, 397, 410 Dijk, Teun A. van 129, 141 – 142, 200, 204 – 205 Dirven, Ren¤ 124, 126 Dobrovsky´, Josef 62 Dolezˇel, Lubom„r 245, 257 Donne, John 396 Dontcheva-Navrtilov, Olga 205 Dostoyevsky, Fedor Mikhailovich 360 Downing, Angela 192, 195, 202, 204 Dressler, Wolfgang U. 129, 141 Droste, Ga¤tane 166, 176 Drummond, William 454 Dryden, John 24, 62

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463

Index Dubois, Jean 66, 82 Dubsky´, Josef 85 Ducrot, Oswald 277, 278 Dusˇkov, Libusˇe 13 – 14, 61 – 62, 76, 78, 82, 85, 87, 97 – 98, 102, 121 – 122, 124, 127, 158, 210 – 211, 218 Dutoit, Thomas 290 Eliot, Thomas Stearns 247, 298, 346 – 348 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 355 Empson, William 300 Engler, Rudolf 416 Enkvist, Nils Erik 204 Enright, Dennis Joseph 279 Erlich, Victor 348 Everaerts, Martin 227 Fairclough, Norman 163, 176 Fehr, Johannes 245, 249, 415, 419 Ferguson, Rosalind 321, 338 Fernando, Chitra 226 Figueroa, Peter 425 Filipec, Josef 76, 82 Filliolet, Jacques 261 – 262, 264 – 265, 267, 273 – 274 Firbas, Jan 100, 102,103, 112 – 114, 120 – 121, 123 – 125, 129 – 132, 134 – 135, 138, 141, 143 – 146, 149, 152 – 153, 158, 185, 203 Firth, John Rupert 23, 68, 82 Fitzgerald, Robert 254 Flood, James 438 Foerster, Norman 303 Fontaine, Jacqueline 315, 319, 320, 338 Forrest, Linda 205 Fortunati, Vita 9 Foss, Karen A. 294, 302 Foss, Robert Trapp 294, 302 Foss, Sonya K. 294, 302 Foucault, Michel 9, 305, 393, 400, 411 Frawley, William 396 Frege, Gottlob 285, 305 Freud, Sigmund 281 – 284, 286 – 287, 289 – 290, 306, 311, 354, 370 Fried, Vil¤m 61, 72, 77, 82, 85, 103, 124, 126, 158, 239, 344 Fry, D.B. 26, 38

Frye, Northrop 259 Fudeman, Kirsten 229, 237 Fukuda, Fazuo 122, 124 Gaines, Jeremy 377 Gallagher, Cormac 291 Gallilei, Galileo 370 Gans, Eric 453, 458, 459 Gardiner, Michael 23, 357, 362 Garvin, Paul L. 84, 205, 291 Gasparov, M.L. 247, 323 – 325, 330, 336, 338 Gasset, Ortega y 449 Geach, Peter 290 Gee, James Paul 397, 404 Geertz, Clifford 9 Genette, G¤rard 275, 278, 279, 353, 362 Gentner, Derdre 439 – 440, 450 Gibbs, R.W. 224 – 226 Giora, Rachel 192, 204 Goblirsch, Kurt 45, 51, 59 Godzich, Wlad 362 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 68 Goffman, Erving 174, 176 Goldsmith, John A. 45 – 46, 49, 55 – 56, 58 – 59 Gombrich, Ernst H. 384 Goodman, Nelson 275, 453 Goody, Esther N. 176 Gracin, Baltasar 365 Greenbaum, Sidney 142, 166, 176, 188 Greenberg, Joseph H. 239 Greene, Brian 217 – 218 Greimas, A.J. 308 Grigg, Russell 291, 377 Grimm, Jacob 323 Grimm, Wilhelm 323 Groupe l 261, 262, 264, 273, 274, 275, 278, 334 Guattari, F¤lix 278, 309 – 311, 383 – 384, 386 Guiraud, Pierre 317 Gundel, Jeanette 157 Gusfield, Joseph R. 293 Guyer, Paul 291 Hajicˇov, Eva 15, 107, 115 – 117, 120, 125 – 127, 144 – 145, 158, 188, 204

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464

Index

Halbwachs, Maurice 247, 347 – 348, 352 Halle, Morris 34, 39, 41, 42 Halliday, Michael Alexander Kirkwood 112, 114, 119, 125, 129, 142, 146, 158, 184 Ham, William 58, 59 Hamilton, William 454 Hankamer, Jorge 56, 58, 59 Hansen, Kristin 333 Harris, Roy 74, 424 Hasan, Ruqayia 129, 142, 200, 204 Hassan, Ihab 358 Hasund, Ingrid Kristine 176 Hausenblas, Karel 191, 193, 194, 205, 437, 440, 450 Havelka, Jirˇ„ 188 Havrnek, Bohuslav 21, 41, 205, 256, 382 Hayes, Bruce 47 – 48, 59 Hazlitt, William 183 Hegel, G.W.F. 370, 457 Heidegger, Martin 364, 434, 457 Hejinian, Lyn 439, 449 Heller-Roazen, Daniel 377 Heydrich, Wolfgang, 204 Hiltunen, Risto 142, 204 Hjelmslev, Louis 63, 77, 82, 109 Hladky´, Josef 124, 126, 127, 204 Hock, Hans Heinrich 229, 238 Hockett, Charles F. 110, 125 Hoffmannov, Jana 205 Holenstein, Elmar 415, 423 Holford-Stevens, L. 338 Holmes, Janet 408 Holquist, Michael 354, 359 – 362 Holub, Robert C. 384 Hora, Josef 256 Horace 68 Horn, Lawrence R. 25, 205 Hoskovec, Tomsˇ 75, 82, 125 Huddleston, Rodney 95, , 103, 209, 211 – 215, 218 Hurch, Bernhard 52, 59 Hurley, Robert 386 Husserl, Edmund 34, 41, 62, 73, 457 Hutcheon, Linda 353, 362 Ingarden, Roman

382

Iser, Wolfgang 245, 250, 453, 455 – 458 Iswolsky, Helene 361 Jackendoff, Ray 113 – 114, 125 Jacobs, Joachim 118, 125 Jacobson, Claire 250 Jaklov, Alena 205 Jakobovits, Leon A. 124, 125, 127 Jakobson, Roman 10, 21 – 24, 29, 31, 33 – 38, 41 – 43, 61, 63, 69, 72, 82, 85, 92, 96, 103, 107, 110, 125, 245 – 246, 248, 254 – 280, 281 – 292, 295, 305 – 306, 311, 314 – 315, 319, 320, 326, 338, 346, 349, 352, 387 – 411, 423, 430, 432 – 433, 436, 437, 450 James, Steve 26, 390 Jancˇek, Leosˇ 256 Janney, Richard W. 172, 176 Jardine, Alice 362 Jauss, Hans Robert 384, 394 Jefferson, Gail 169, 176 Johnson, Samuel 31, 256 – 257, 435 Jones, Daniel 23 – 24, 26 – 29, 31 – 33, 35 – 36, 38, 42 Jones, Doris L. 377 Joseph, John E. 74 – 75, 83 Joyce, James 427 Jungmann, Josef 257 – 258 Kafka, Franz 376 – 377 Kalantzis, Mary 402 Kamp, Hans 124 Kanekiyo, Tetsuya 84 Kansteiner, Wulf 385 Kant, Immanuel 282, 291, 454 – 455 Karcevskij, Serge 34, 42, 77, 111, 125 Karl„k, Petr 158 Kavka, Stanislav 17, 219 – 220, 226 Keenan, Elinor Ochs 165, 170, 176 Keer, Edward 48, 51 – 52, 59 Kenstowicz, Michael 53 – 57, 59 Kepler, Johannes 370 Kim, Myung Hee 55, 205 Kimball, J.P. 127 Kintsch, Walter 142, 192 Kissiberth, Charles 59 Klee, Paul 366

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465

Index Kl¤gr, Alesˇ 17, 86, 127, 189, 205, 229, 238 Klein, Melanie 282 Klikov, Alice 438 – 439, 450 Kocourek, Rostislav 14, 61, 71, 76, 78, 83 Kohlenberger, John R. 133, 142 Koizumi, Tamotsu 84 Komatsu, Eisuke 84, 424 Kopeckij, Leontij 69, 83 Kopytko, Roman 226 Korˇensky´, Jan, 78, 194, 205 Kortmann, Bernd 188 Kouba, Petr 425, 450, 451 Kraehenmann, Astrid 46 – 48, 51, 58, 59 Krcˇmov, Marie 144, 146, 158 Krejnovicˇ, Eruxim A. 122, 125 Kristeva, Julia 279, 353, 358 – 359, 362 Kuhn, Thomas S. 261 Kundera, Milan 229 Kuno, Susumu 122, 125, 144 – 145, 157, 158, 205 Lacan, Jacques 246, 281 – 292, 305, 365, 377 Laclau, Ernesto 395, 411 Lahiri, Aditi 56, 58, 59 Lamarque, Peter V. 83, 84 Lapoujade, David 311 Lauren, Ch. 83 Lavers, Anette 311 Lawrenson, A.C. 31, 35, 38 – 40, 42 Leben, William 54, 59 Leech, Geoffrey 93, 103, 188, 196, 226 Lehiste, Ilse 47, 53, 59 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 64, 66, 72, 74, 370, 455 Lenk, Uta 192, 198, 203 Leroi-Gourhan, Andr¤ 427, 436, 458 – 459 Lesˇka, Oldrˇich 62, 83, 107 – 108, 110, 125 Lester, Mark 386, 459 L¤vi-Strauss, Claude 245, 261, 267, 278, 354, 379, 387 – 388, 458 Levin, Juliette 46, 59 Levinson, Stephen 171, 174, 176 Levy´, Jirˇ„ 245, 247, 257, 313 – 349 Li, Lu Li 93, 103 Liapunov, Vadim 362 Lieber, Rochelle 239

Lilienfeld, Robert 438 Linell, Per 198, 205 Lionnet, FranÅoise 453 Lipking, Lawrence 245, 253, 257 Lisker, Leigh 58, 59 Livingston, Paisley 450 Locke, John 74 Locke, Philip 202, 204 Lomov, Olga 459 Loporcaro, Michele 49 – 50, 52, 59 Lorris, Guillaume de 272 Lotman, Yuri 430, 434 Lovitt, William 436 Luelsdorff, Philip A. 450 Luhmann, Niklas 10, 248, 344, 363 – 365, 367 – 377 Luschîtzky, Hans 52, 59 Lyons, John 125, 226, 235, 238 Ma, Ming-Qian 245, 249, 437 Macherey, Pierre 395 Maddalon, Marto 60 Ma€mon, Solomon 455 Makaryk, Irena 386 Mal, Mark¤ta 16, 127, 177, 188, 189, 205 Malone, Kemp 35, 38, 39, 42 Man, Paul de 353, 415 Mann, Thomas 294 Mannheim, Karl 384 Martella, Giuseppe 249, 427 Martin, James R. 202, 205 Marx, Karl 410 Masetti, Giorgio 49, 60 Matejka, Ladislav 355, 433 Mathesius, Vil¤m 13, 61, 65, 73 – 74, 109 – 112, 118, 125, 126, 129, 192, 205, 254, 315, 319, 437 Maturana, Humberto 245, 250, 428, 439 – 441, 445 – 447, 449 – 450 Mauro, Tullio de 429 McCarthy, John 55 – 58, 60 McGann, Jerome 402 McGee, Verna 361 McLuhan, Marshall 435, 436 Medvedev, P.N. 355 – 356, 362 Meillet, Antoine 70 – 71, 83

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466

Index

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 433, 436 Meschonnic, Henri 247, 318, 321, 323 – 324, 326 – 330, 333, 337 – 338 Mey, Jacob L. 127 Meyer, Charles F. 103 Meyerhoff, Miriam 408 Miall, David S. 450 Misˇsˇ„kov, Gabriela 205 Mitzka, Walther 49, 59 Moeller, Hans Georg 364, 368, 370, 376 Molini¤, Georges 279 Moore, Steven 126 Moore, Winston 411 Morel, Mary-Annick 277 Morier, Henri 318, 338 Morin, Edgar 431 Morris, Mervyn 410 Morson, Gary Saul 355, 360 Mouffe, Chantal 395 Mukarˇovsky´, Jan 193, 196, 205, 246 – 247, 254 – 257, 259, 283, 285, 291, 313 – 317, 319, 326, 333, 338, 349, 351, 352, 382, 425, 451, 454, 458 Mîllerov, Olga 205 Nagel, Ernest 265 Nancy, Jean-Luc 376 Neubauer, Fritz 204 Nietzsche, Friedrich 364, 383 Nosek, Jirˇ„ 61, 85, 103 Novk, Pavel 107, 110, 122, 126 Novalis 368 Ochs, Elinor 163, 176 O’Connor, Joseph Desmond 144 – 146 Ogden, C.K. 459 Ollier, Claude 275 OPOYAZ 9, 354 – 356 Ortony, Andrew D. 226, 411 Palkov, Zdena 144, 146, 158 Palmer, Frank R. 226 Panevov, Jarmila 93, 103, 126, 127, 158, 188 Pariente, Jean-Claude 37, 42 Partee, Barbara 113, 116 – 117, 120, 124 – 126, 158

Pasternak, Boris 256, 259, 393 Patocˇka, Jan 380 Paul, Hermann 120, 229 Paulson, William 442, 448 Peer, Willie van 195, 203, 205 Peirce, Charles Saunders 74, 388 Peregrin, Jaroslav 114, 126 Perelman, Chaim 293 Peterek, Nino 120, 127 Peterka, Josef 192, 205 Peto˝fi, Jnos S. 204 Picht, H. 83 P„palov, Renata 16, 191, 203, 205 Pires, Matthew 84, 425 Plag, Ingo 230, 234, 236, 239 Plato 435 Platt, Martha 176 Podesva, Robert 58 Poincar¤, Henri 439 Pomorska, Krystyna 259, 355, 433 Popper, Karl Raimund 384 Posp„sˇil, Ivo 454 Povoln, Renata 188, 192, 205 Preminger, Alex 338 Prince, Alan 51, 60 Prochzka, Martin 9, 245, 258, 379, 453 Propp, Vladimir Jakovlevich 314 Proust, Marcel 265 – 267, 271 – 272 Pu, Ming Ming 96, 150, 205, 210 Pullum, Geoffrey K. 95, 103 Pyle, Charles 53 – 54, 96 Pyles, Thomas 96, 103 Pynchon, Thomas 368 Quirk, Randolph 94, 103, 122, 126, 147, 159, 177 – 178, 188, 213 – 214, 218 Rabatel, Alain 277 Rabelais, FranÅois 356 Racine, Jean 277 Raffoul, FranÅois 378 Rasch, William 363 – 369, 376 Rastier, FranÅois 267, 269 Rauch, Irmengard 59 Razzano, Virginie 272 Reddy, Michael 396

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467

Index Rees, William 338 Reid, Thomas 454 Reidlinger, Albert 436 Reiss, Marion J. 292 Reitz, Bernhard 239 Rey, Alain 83 Ricardou, Jean 272, 275 Richards, Ivor Armstrong 293 Riedinger, Albert 83 Rieuwerts, Sigrid 239 Riffaterre, Michael 261 – 262, 264, 271 – 275, 277, 279 Rimbaud, Arthur 268, 269 Riviere, Joan 311 Robbe-Grillet, Alain 275 Roberts, W. Rhys 386 Robins, Robert Henry 68, 428 Romero Trillo, Jesffls 165 – 166, 168, 175 – 176 Romito, Luciano 60 Rooth, Mats 113 – 114, 119 – 120, 126 Roraback, Erik 248, 363 Rose, David 195, 202, 205, 263, 272, 353 Ross, James F. 386 Roudiez, L¤on S. 362 Rîhlemann, Christoph 163 – 164, 172, 176 Rus„nov, Zdenka 158 Russell, Bertrand 72 – 73, 77 Russiero, G. 60 Ruwet, Nicolas 261 – 262, 264, 273 – 274, 279 – 280, 315, 320 Sacks, Harvey 169, 176, 198 Sadock, Jerrold. M. 111, 127 Saldanha, Gaby 121, 126 Salvestroni, Simonetta 436 Sampaolo, Michele 436 Samuels, Lisa 402 Sanders, Carol 65, 82 – 84, 425 Sandt, Rob van der 126 Sartre, Jean-Paul 395 Saussure, Ferdinand de 9 – 10, 13, 15, 64 – 66, 70 – 71, 73 – 74, 77, 82 – 84, 107, 137 – 138, 140 – 142, 229, 239, 245, 249, 282, 284, 285, 291, 295, 344, 360, 388, 390, 392, 393, 409, 415 – 425, 430, 432, 436, 438, 439, 451

Schamschula, Walter 352 Schegloff, Emanuel A. 169, 176 Schelling, F.W.J. 454 Schieffelin, Bambi B. 176 Schiffrin, Deborah 165, 175 – 176 Schiller, Friedrich 250, 456 Schlegel, Friedrich 368 Schoepf, Brooke 250 Schçnenberger, Margarita 42 Schreiber, Elliott 377 Schroedinger, Erwin 428 Scott-Moncrieff, Charles Kenneth 279 Scotus, Duns 368 Sechehaye, Albert 142, 239, 436 Seiler, H. 441 Selkirk, Elisabeth 48, 50, 121, 126 S¤riot, Patrick 22 – 23, 42 Serres, Michel 250, 447, 450 Seuren, P. A. M. 74, 84 Sgall, Petr 76, 84, 107, 110, 112 – 115, 117, 120, 123, 125 – 127, 144 – 145, 158, 188, 441 Shakespeare, William 31, 284, 319, 321, 326 – 327, 329, 331, 333, 338, 435 Shannon, Claude 441 Shapiro, Michael 267, 275 Sharon-Zisser, Shirley 246, 281, 288 – 292 Shaw, George Bernard 31 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 233, 332 Shibatani, Masayoshi 441, 450, 451 Shklovsky, Viktor 281, 283, 291, 314 Short, Michael H. 195, 205 Simone, R. 60 Skalicˇka, Vladim„r 109 – 110, 127 Skalicˇkov, Alena 121 Skoumalov, Zdena 125 Skousen, Royal 234, 239 Sldek, Ondrˇej 415, 439, 451 Smoleksky, Paul 60 Smolka, Vladislav 17, 99, 103, 209 Sonomura, Marion Okawa 226 So˝zer, Emel 204 Spiridon, Monica 247, 353 Spitzer, Leo 295 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorthy 82, 290 Starobinski, Jean 267 Stehr, Nico 369 – 370, 372

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468

Index

Steier, Frederick 450 Stein, Gabriele 231, 239 Steinberg, Danny D. 124, 125, 127 Steiner, Peter 259, 338 Stenstrçm, Anna-Brita 165, 176 Steube, Anita 125 Stevens, Wallace 389, 403, 410 Stewart, Dugald 454 Stivale, Charles 386, 459 Stolz, Benjamin 362 Strachey, James 290 Strawson, Peter 115, 127 Strelka, Joseph P. 362 Striedter, Jurij 255, 258 Svartvik, Jan 147, 159, 166, 176, 188 Sveˇtl, Jindra 204 Svoboda, Alesˇ 112, 127, 131 – 132, 138, 140, 142 143, 158, 188 Szymanek, Bogdan 232, 234, 239 Sˇaldov, Pavl„na 16, 86, 127, 177, 188 – 189, 205 Sˇtekauer, Pavol 158, 220, 226, 239 Tabossi, Patrizia 226 Tannen, Deborah 169, 176 Tanskanen, Sanna-Kaisa 142, 204 Tarlinskaya, Marina 338 Trnyikov, Jarmila 198, 205 Thibaudet, Albert 254 Thomas, Margaret 395 Thomson, Sandra A. 233, 239 Thorstein, Fretheim 157 Titunik, I.R. 355, 360 Tobin, Yishai 437 Todorov, Tzvetan 261, 280, 353 – 354, 359 – 360, 362 Toman, Jindrˇich 254 Tomlin, Russell S. 200, 205 Tomlinson, Hugh 311, 386 Tonelli, Livia 52, 59 Trapp, Robert 294 Trask, R. Larry 64, 84 Trnka, Bohumil 9, 13 – 14, 17, 24, 30, 35, 37 – 42, 61 – 85, 87 – 92, 96, 100, 103, 110, 127, 229, 239, 254, 315, 319

Trubetzkoy, N.S., Prince 13 – 14, 21 – 43, 45, 47, 49 – 51, 53, 55, 57 – 60, 245, 313, 396, 430, 437 Trumper, John 52, 60 Turner, Bryan S. 366 Tynyanov, Yuri M. 348, 392 Ullmann, Stephen 226, 235, 239 Underhill, James 247 Vachek, Josef 14, 29 – 30, 35 – 40, 61, 73, 75 – 77, 82, 85, 107 – 108, 112, 118, 125, 127, 302, 303, 315, 338, 346, 352, 437 – 438, 452 Vaihinger, Hans 245, 250, 453 – 457 Val¤ry, Paul 374 Vancˇura, Zdeneˇk 69, 86 Varela, Francisco 245, 436, 439 – 441, 445 – 447, 449 – 451 Ventola, Eija 203, 204 Vesel, Katerˇina 120, 127 Vico, Giambattista 379 Viel, Michel 13 – 14, 21, 43 Vinogradov, V.V. 437 Visnuzzi, R. 60 Vodicˇka, Felix 245, 246, 248, 255, 257 – 259, 380, 382, 383, 386, 454, 458, 459 Volek, Emil 441 Voloshinov, V.N. 356 Vonk, W. 226 Voort, M.E.C. van de 226 Voruz, Veronique 291 Vygotsky, Lev Semenovich 404 Waltereit, Richard 165 – 166, 176 Ward, Gregory L. 205, 227 Warnant, L¤on 321, 339 Wrwik, Brita 142 Wehrle, Albert 362 Weil, Antoinette 84, 425 Weil, Henri 112, 127 Weiser, Elizabeth 246, 293 Wellek, Ren¤ 9, 245 – 246, 253 – 254, 258 – 260, 293 – 303, 343, 453 – 459 Welty, Eudora 307 – 309 Wesling, Donald 247 Wess, Robert 299 – 300, 303

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469

Index Whobrey, William 377 Wilkinson, Elizabeth M. 459 Willoughby, L.A. 459 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 368 Wolfe, Cary 440 – 441, 451 Wutsdorff, Irina 349, 350, 352 Wyner, Adam Zachary 126

Zamboni, Alberto 52, 60 Zardon, F. 226 Zelenka, Milosˇ 454 Ziccardi, Giovanni 50, 60 Zohn, Harry 386 Zwicky, Arnold. M. 111, 127 Zˇizˇek, Slavoj

395

Yocaris, Ilias 246, 261, 272, 275, 276, 280 Yule, George 141, 194, 200, 203

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